Companies must approach cost and carbon reduction in the same way if targets are to be met, warned a number of industry experts.
Jon Green, a consultant for business advisory firm JMP, said the travel industry had been slower to respond to the green agenda than other sectors.
Now is an “important time”, he said, as companies try to “define what sustainability means in the business travel arena”.
He also predicted that companies would be held more accountable on their carbon footprint, both by government and by clients.
Green was speaking at the Business Travel and Meetings Show in London, during an industry round-table discussion on carbon cutting.
Sarah Makings, European category manager for procurement at KPMG, said carbon cutting is taking precedence over cost cutting in some areas of travel.
Rail travel has been mandated on a number of routes, even if travelling by air were to be cheaper, she said.
Makings said KPMG paid special attention to a supplier's CSR policy, refusing to work with them if they don't have one in place.
However, many business travellers simply don't consider the environment when choosing their mode of travel, said Jenny Southan, senior features writer at ABTN's sister title Business Traveller.
Niclas Svenningsen, head of Sustainable United Nations (SUN) at the United Nations’ Environment Programme, said that travel suppliers should be working harder to reduce their carbon footprint, but that progress was under way.
“There is a competitive advantage to those suppliers that want to take this up,” he said.
The UN would reward its travel suppliers who lowered their own CO2 emissions, said Svenningsen, as this would mean the organisation could lower its own carbon footprint.