Tracking business travel is essential for a comprehensive emissions footprint. Because different modes of transport—and even different classes of flights—have different emissions profiles, CarbonTrail requires you to break down this data carefully.
Here is how to calculate and manually enter your business travel data.
What You Will Need
Before entering data, you need to gather your travel records for the last 12 months. Depending on how your team travels, you will need totals categorized by month, by supplier, and by transport type:
Flights: You need the total distance traveled multiplied by the number of passengers, grouped by the class of the flight (e.g., domestic, international premium economy, business class).
Taxis and Rideshares (Uber): For Ubers, distances are typically on the receipts. For traditional taxis, you will need to estimate the distance based on your expenditure ledger. Pay attention to the type of vehicle (e.g., petrol hybrid, electric).
Rental Cars: An estimate of the total distances traveled and the type of car used.
Mileage Claims: For employees using personal vehicles for company business, sum up all mileage claims and group them by the type of car (e.g., petrol, diesel, electric).
Buses: Total distances traveled multiplied by the number of passengers.
Pro-Tip for High-Volume Flyers: > If your company books a large volume of flights, manually calculating distances can be tedious. Try asking your airline or travel management company for a breakdown—even better if it includes emissions data!
Let the CarbonTrail team know if you can get this, and we can add that data for you.
How to Calculate Passenger Kilometers
For flights and buses, CarbonTrail uses a metric called passenger kilometers.
The Formula: Distance of the trip (in kilometers) x Number of people traveling = Passenger Kilometers.
Example Calculation: A flight between Auckland and Wellington is roughly 480 kilometers.
If 2 people traveled on that flight: 480 km x 2 passengers = 960 passenger kilometers.
Note: If it was a return flight, you would double that number again.
Step-by-Step Guide
Once you have your totals (passenger kilometers or standard kilometers) categorized per month and per supplier, you can add them to the platform:
Navigate to the Business Travel section in your data entry table.
Select your travel supplier (e.g., Air New Zealand, Uber) from the list.
Choose the specific activity or class:
For Flights: Select the specific class (e.g., Domestic Air Travel, International Premium Economy). Note: Domestic flights usually only have one class, while international flights must be separated by class since they have different emissions factors.
For Cars/Taxis: Select the vehicle type (e.g., Petrol Hybrid, Electric Vehicle).
Enter your calculated passenger kilometers (for flights/buses) or kilometers traveled (for cars/taxis) into the corresponding monthly fields.
Repeat this process for all travel suppliers and transport types.
Your data will save automatically as you enter it into the form.
Need help?
Business travel can involve a lot of moving parts! If you are having trouble estimating taxi distances, calculating passenger kilometers, or sourcing your flight data, please reach out to the CarbonTrail team by clicking the chat icon in the bottom right corner of your screen. We are happy to assist!