10 Mar 2025

The Future of Green Travel: Sustainable Technology in the Travel Industry

Published: 11 Mar 2025
By: Jonathan Carter-Chapman, Marketing Director, Northstar Travel Group
Topics: Sustainable Travel, Travel Management Platforms, Green Technology, Corporate Travel, Future of Travel Tech
Read Time: 7 minutes

Quick Summary

Sustainable technology is reshaping the future of corporate and managed travel. From automated carbon tracking to real-time data enrichment and flexible, modular platforms, today’s travel tech is enabling businesses to reduce emissions, improve duty of care, and report on environmental and wellbeing metrics with greater accuracy.

Solutions like TripStax are leading the charge, centralising data across the ecosystem to drive smarter decisions, lower emissions, and greener travel choices at scale.

Travel Tech Show | 19–20 June 2025 | ExCeL London

Introduction

As the global travel industry faces increasing pressure to reduce its environmental impact, the spotlight has turned to the role of technology in supporting greener, more responsible travel. The transition to sustainable corporate travel isn’t just about carbon offsetting—it’s about integrating intelligent systems that help organisations track, report, and reduce their environmental footprint at scale.

Platforms like TripStax are at the heart of this transformation. With its modular stack of cloud-based tools powered by a centralised data engine, TripStax exemplifies how connected travel technology can deliver both commercial and environmental value.

This article explores how sustainable technology is redefining the way travel management companies (TMCs) and corporate clients operate—and what the future holds for green travel in a data-driven world.

🌍 Green Travel Starts with Smarter Data

The foundation of sustainable travel lies in data—specifically, the ability to capture, centralise, and act on carbon and risk-related insights. Traditional travel systems often struggle with siloed or inconsistent data, making it difficult to report accurately on emissions or assess alternatives like rail travel over short-haul flights.

TripStax’s approach addresses this head-on. Its TripStax Core acts as a real-time data warehouse that sits at the centre of the platform’s ten modules. It stores and enriches each booking with information from multiple third-party systems throughout the trip lifecycle—an average of six times per booking.

In 2023 alone, the Core handled over 84 million data exchanges, many of which supported sustainability and risk tracking. This level of integration is critical for powering accurate, real-time carbon reporting, and enables travel managers to make greener, more informed decisions.

🔁 Automated Carbon Reporting at Scale

Perhaps the most significant sign of the industry's sustainability shift is the surge in demand for automated carbon data.

The increase in demand for automated carbon, risk and wellbeing data is just one sign that the evolution we set out to kick start is underway
— Jack Ramsey, CEO, TripStax

According to the company’s recent growth announcement, TripStax sent over 43.6 million automated CO₂ data requests to sustainability platform Thrust Carbon in 2023—a rise of 18% year on year. Each request retrieves CO₂ emissions data for a specific booking segment, feeding it back into the system for inclusion in itineraries, reports, and dashboards.

This capability allows TMCs and corporates to:

Calculate total emissions across business units or regions
Compare the environmental impact of travel options
Align corporate travel with broader ESG goals

It also eliminates manual data gathering, making it easier for businesses to integrate sustainability into their everyday travel operations.

🛡️ Sustainability Meets Duty of Care

Sustainable travel is about more than emissions—it also includes traveller wellbeing, safety, and ethical decision-making.

In 2023, 88% of all bookings within the TripStax Core received requests from third-party providers such as security and wellness services—a 54% increase year on year. This suggests a growing demand for platforms that offer not just environmental oversight but also enhanced duty of care and risk management.

As companies seek to align travel policies with their ESG commitments, there’s a clear trend toward platforms that combine sustainability, risk, and wellbeing in a single ecosystem.

💡 The Role of Modularity and Flexibility

Legacy travel systems have long been criticised for complexity and poor integration. TripStax’s modular model allows TMCs to adopt only the tools they need, when they need them—whether that’s carbon reporting, risk management, or traveller communications.

“Clients can start with The TripStax Core connected to one or two TripStax modules, and add further modules in their own timeframe, without disrupting their business-as-usual workflows.”
— Jack Ramsey, CEO, TripStax

This flexibility enables both large enterprise TMCs and smaller SMEs to build sustainable, data-driven travel operations without costly overhauls. It also allows them to plug in external green tech providers—like carbon offset tools, sustainable hotel directories, or train-first booking engines—alongside their existing workflows.

💷 Commercial Incentives for Going Green

Sustainability doesn’t need to come at the expense of profitability. In fact, TripStax’s commercial model incentivises efficiency by charging only once for booking data ingestion—regardless of how many modules or third-party systems access that data later.

This helps TMCs:

Reduce third-party tech vendor costs
Improve profit margins
Scale their operations without escalating fees

It’s a model that aligns financial and environmental goals, making it easier for businesses to commit to sustainable practices without compromise.

🔮 Looking Ahead: Green Tech as Standard

The future of green travel lies in platforms that are designed for sustainability from the ground up—not as a bolt-on, but as a core part of the system architecture.

As governments and clients increase pressure on the travel sector to cut emissions, platforms that offer transparent, real-time CO₂ tracking, modular innovation, and deep integration will become the new standard.

Jack Ramsey sums it up:

“TMCs want to migrate towards using a centralised data warehouse as a single point of truth for managing and enriching their customers’ travel data… We will continue to drive innovation to enhance TripStax’s tech proposition proactively with insight into TMCs’ and corporates’ needs.”

Final Thoughts

Sustainable technology is no longer a nice-to-have—it’s a competitive necessity. Tools that automate carbon tracking, enhance duty of care, and centralise travel data are giving TMCs and corporates the foundation they need to build greener, smarter, and more scalable travel programmes.

Platforms like TripStax demonstrate that with the right data infrastructure, sustainability can go hand-in-hand with cost efficiency, traveller wellbeing, and operational resilience. As the industry evolves, green tech isn’t just shaping the future of travel—it is the future of travel.

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