Calculating emissions for travel and transportation shouldn't be difficult, but it has always been tedious. Whether tracking business travel under Scope 3.6 or downstream distribution under Scope 3.9, organisations face the same challenges: gathering data from multiple sources, looking up the right emission factors, and working through spreadsheets of manual calculations that take hours and introduce errors. As we explored in our article on the practical challenges of measuring Scope 3 emissions, these data collection and calculation burdens are among the most common obstacles to accurate reporting.
KEY ESG's new route-based emissions calculations functionality transforms this process, making it simple to calculate accurate emissions for both travel and transportation directly within the platform.
Why route-based calculations matter
For many organisations, travel and transportation represent significant emissions sources that require accurate measurement. Business travel emissions affect consultancies, professional services firms, infrastructure operators, and investment firms where team mobility is essential to operations. Downstream transportation and distribution emissions are material for retailers, manufacturers, and any business moving products to customers. For such organisations, Scope 3 emissions typically make up 70-90% of their total carbon footprint, making accurate measurement of these categories essential for credible reporting and meaningful emissions reduction.
These categories, Scope 3.6 and 3.9, are increasingly scrutinised by investors, regulators, and stakeholders. Under frameworks including CSRD, SFDR, and GRI, organisations need credible, auditable data. Yet the calculation burden has traditionally made this difficult.
Travel and transportation data comes from expense systems, booking platforms, logistics providers, and shipping records. Converting this raw data into accurate emissions figures requires detailed emission factors for different transport modes, vehicle types, fuel sources, distances, and routing. The manual approach is resource-intensive and risks inaccuracy.
How the functionality works
KEY ESG's route-based emissions calculators eliminate the complexity. Users input journey details, such as departure and arrival locations, transport mode, and the platform automatically calculates emissions using comprehensive, up-to-date emission factors.
The functionality covers all major transport modes across both travel and transportation applications:
Aviation: Calculations account for flight class (economy, business, first), aircraft type, and routing, including the significant emissions impact of take-off and landing. Both direct flights and routes with connections are supported. This applies equally to business travel and air freight distribution.
Ground transportation: Emissions for cars, trains, buses, trucks, and vans are calculated based on vehicle type, fuel source, and journey distance. This covers company vehicles, rental cars, taxis, public transport for business travel, and freight vehicles used in product distribution.
Multi-modal journeys: Complex routes involving multiple transport modes—such as a flight followed by road transport, or sea freight followed by rail delivery—can be calculated as complete journeys with accurate emissions for each leg.
The platform draws on established emission factor databases, ensuring calculations align with recognised methodologies and regulatory requirements.
Flexible data collection to suit your workflow
KEY ESG supports multiple approaches to data collection, allowing you to choose the method that works best for your organisation. Journey details can be entered directly into the platform through an intuitive interface, or you can connect existing systems via API to automate data flows entirely.
For organisations that prefer manual entry or have limited volumes of travel and transportation data, the platform's user-friendly interface makes it simple to input journey details and generate emissions calculations instantly. This approach works well for smaller teams or those just beginning to track travel and distribution emissions systematically.
For organisations processing higher volumes of travel bookings or shipment records, API integrations offer significant efficiency gains. Connect expense management platforms, finance systems, travel booking tools, or logistics software directly to KEY ESG, and travel bookings, expense claims, and shipment records flow automatically into the platform. Route-based calculations then generate emissions data without manual intervention, transforming business travel captured in your expense system or distribution routes tracked in your logistics platform into accurate Scope 3 emissions data continuously throughout the reporting period.
API integrations eliminate duplicate data entry, reduce the risk of transcription errors, and ensure emissions calculations reflect the latest travel and transportation activity. Whether you're using mainstream expense platforms like SAP Concur or Expensify, bespoke finance systems, or specialist logistics software, KEY ESG's flexible API architecture can connect to your existing data sources.
Three key benefits
1. Saves time
Route-based calculations generate emissions data in moments rather than hours. For organisations processing hundreds or thousands of travel bookings or shipment records annually, this time saving is substantial. When combined with API integrations that automate data collection, the time savings multiply, eliminating both the calculation burden and the data entry work. Resources previously spent on manual calculations can be redirected to analysis and emissions reduction initiatives.
2. Improves accuracy
The functionality eliminates common errors in manual approaches; incorrect distances, outdated emission factors, or oversimplified assumptions that treat all flights, journeys, or shipments identically. Route-based calculations account for the specific characteristics of each trip or delivery, providing emissions data that stakeholders can trust and auditors can verify. API integrations further improve accuracy by removing transcription errors and ensuring calculations are based on source data rather than manually copied records.
3. Enables impact
You can't improve what you don't measure. Accurate route-based data allows organisations to identify their highest-impact routes, compare emissions profiles between transport providers, evaluate modal shift opportunities, such as moving from air to sea freight or from road to rail, and set credible reduction targets. For organisations where travel or distribution represents a material emissions source, improving data quality can significantly affect overall reporting accuracy and emissions management.
Practical applications
Business travel (Scope 3.6)
Travel-heavy organisations can enter journey details directly into KEY ESG as trips occur, or connect their expense management systems and booking platforms via API for automatic data flow, with emissions calculated instantly for each journey.
This enables continuous tracking throughout the reporting period rather than a year-end reconciliation exercise. Finance teams can see emissions data alongside travel costs, supporting both carbon reduction and travel policy decisions. For organisations using platforms like SAP Concur, Expensify, or similar expense systems, API integration means travel emissions data is generated automatically without additional work for finance or sustainability teams.
Downstream transportation (Scope 3.9)
Organisations with distribution activities can manually log shipment details as needed, or connect logistics systems, warehouse management platforms, and shipping software to automatically pull shipment data and calculate emissions across their entire delivery network.
This visibility supports strategic and practical operational decisions about distribution centres, carrier selection, packaging optimisation, and modal shift opportunities. For retailers and manufacturers, understanding the emissions profile of different distribution routes is essential for credible Scope 3 reporting and reduction planning. API connections to transport management systems mean this data flows continuously without manual extraction.
Regulatory context
For organisations reporting under CSRD, Scope 3.6 is a mandatory disclosure where business travel emissions are material, and Scope 3.9 must be reported where downstream transportation is material to the business model. Route-based calculations provide the robust, auditable data that external assurance requires, with clear methodologies and traceable emission factors.
Beyond compliance, accurate travel and transportation data supports voluntary disclosures to CDP, sustainability-linked financing arrangements, and investor ESG questionnaires where Scope 3 measurement quality is increasingly assessed.
Integrated data management with AI-powered insights
The route-based functionality integrates seamlessly into KEY ESG's broader platform capabilities. Travel and transportation emissions sit alongside energy consumption, waste, water, and other environmental metrics within a single system. This integrated approach means sustainability teams can track progress across all material emissions sources, identify the highest-impact reduction opportunities, and report comprehensively to stakeholders, all from one platform.
KEY ESG's AI-powered functionality takes this further, actively helping you improve sustainability performance. The platform analyses your emissions data, including travel and transportation patterns, to identify trends, flag anomalies, and surface reduction opportunities you might otherwise miss. AI capabilities help interpret complex datasets, benchmark performance against peers, and generate insights that translate data into action.
Rather than simply collecting numbers, the platform guides users towards meaningful improvements, whether that's identifying the most carbon-intensive travel routes to prioritise for reduction, spotting opportunities to consolidate shipments, or highlighting where modal shifts could deliver the greatest emissions savings. This transforms ESG data management from a reporting exercise into a strategic tool for continuous improvement.
Moving from manual work to automated insights
Route-based emissions calculations make travel and transportation measurement straightforward, accurate, and integrated into your ESG data management. Whether you're manually tracking occasional business trips or automatically processing thousands of shipments, KEY ESG provides the tools to understand your emissions profile and take action to reduce it, with the flexibility to work the way that suits your organisation.
To see how route-based emissions calculations and API integrations could work for your organisation, get in touch with the KEY ESG team.
Calculating emissions for travel and transportation shouldn't be difficult, but it has always been tedious. Whether tracking business travel under Scope 3.6 or downstream distribution under Scope 3.9, organisations face the same challenges: gathering data from multiple sources, looking up the right emission factors, and working through spreadsheets of manual calculations that take hours and introduce errors. As we explored in our article on the practical challenges of measuring Scope 3 emissions, these data collection and calculation burdens are among the most common obstacles to accurate reporting.
KEY ESG's new route-based emissions calculations functionality transforms this process, making it simple to calculate accurate emissions for both travel and transportation directly within the platform.
Why route-based calculations matter
For many organisations, travel and transportation represent significant emissions sources that require accurate measurement. Business travel emissions affect consultancies, professional services firms, infrastructure operators, and investment firms where team mobility is essential to operations. Downstream transportation and distribution emissions are material for retailers, manufacturers, and any business moving products to customers. For such organisations, Scope 3 emissions typically make up 70-90% of their total carbon footprint, making accurate measurement of these categories essential for credible reporting and meaningful emissions reduction.
These categories, Scope 3.6 and 3.9, are increasingly scrutinised by investors, regulators, and stakeholders. Under frameworks including CSRD, SFDR, and GRI, organisations need credible, auditable data. Yet the calculation burden has traditionally made this difficult.
Travel and transportation data comes from expense systems, booking platforms, logistics providers, and shipping records. Converting this raw data into accurate emissions figures requires detailed emission factors for different transport modes, vehicle types, fuel sources, distances, and routing. The manual approach is resource-intensive and risks inaccuracy.
How the functionality works
KEY ESG's route-based emissions calculators eliminate the complexity. Users input journey details, such as departure and arrival locations, transport mode, and the platform automatically calculates emissions using comprehensive, up-to-date emission factors.
The functionality covers all major transport modes across both travel and transportation applications:
Aviation: Calculations account for flight class (economy, business, first), aircraft type, and routing, including the significant emissions impact of take-off and landing. Both direct flights and routes with connections are supported. This applies equally to business travel and air freight distribution.
Ground transportation: Emissions for cars, trains, buses, trucks, and vans are calculated based on vehicle type, fuel source, and journey distance. This covers company vehicles, rental cars, taxis, public transport for business travel, and freight vehicles used in product distribution.
Multi-modal journeys: Complex routes involving multiple transport modes—such as a flight followed by road transport, or sea freight followed by rail delivery—can be calculated as complete journeys with accurate emissions for each leg.
The platform draws on established emission factor databases, ensuring calculations align with recognised methodologies and regulatory requirements.
Flexible data collection to suit your workflow
KEY ESG supports multiple approaches to data collection, allowing you to choose the method that works best for your organisation. Journey details can be entered directly into the platform through an intuitive interface, or you can connect existing systems via API to automate data flows entirely.
For organisations that prefer manual entry or have limited volumes of travel and transportation data, the platform's user-friendly interface makes it simple to input journey details and generate emissions calculations instantly. This approach works well for smaller teams or those just beginning to track travel and distribution emissions systematically.
For organisations processing higher volumes of travel bookings or shipment records, API integrations offer significant efficiency gains. Connect expense management platforms, finance systems, travel booking tools, or logistics software directly to KEY ESG, and travel bookings, expense claims, and shipment records flow automatically into the platform. Route-based calculations then generate emissions data without manual intervention, transforming business travel captured in your expense system or distribution routes tracked in your logistics platform into accurate Scope 3 emissions data continuously throughout the reporting period.
API integrations eliminate duplicate data entry, reduce the risk of transcription errors, and ensure emissions calculations reflect the latest travel and transportation activity. Whether you're using mainstream expense platforms like SAP Concur or Expensify, bespoke finance systems, or specialist logistics software, KEY ESG's flexible API architecture can connect to your existing data sources.
Three key benefits
1. Saves time
Route-based calculations generate emissions data in moments rather than hours. For organisations processing hundreds or thousands of travel bookings or shipment records annually, this time saving is substantial. When combined with API integrations that automate data collection, the time savings multiply, eliminating both the calculation burden and the data entry work. Resources previously spent on manual calculations can be redirected to analysis and emissions reduction initiatives.
2. Improves accuracy
The functionality eliminates common errors in manual approaches; incorrect distances, outdated emission factors, or oversimplified assumptions that treat all flights, journeys, or shipments identically. Route-based calculations account for the specific characteristics of each trip or delivery, providing emissions data that stakeholders can trust and auditors can verify. API integrations further improve accuracy by removing transcription errors and ensuring calculations are based on source data rather than manually copied records.
3. Enables impact
You can't improve what you don't measure. Accurate route-based data allows organisations to identify their highest-impact routes, compare emissions profiles between transport providers, evaluate modal shift opportunities, such as moving from air to sea freight or from road to rail, and set credible reduction targets. For organisations where travel or distribution represents a material emissions source, improving data quality can significantly affect overall reporting accuracy and emissions management.
Practical applications
Business travel (Scope 3.6)
Travel-heavy organisations can enter journey details directly into KEY ESG as trips occur, or connect their expense management systems and booking platforms via API for automatic data flow, with emissions calculated instantly for each journey.
This enables continuous tracking throughout the reporting period rather than a year-end reconciliation exercise. Finance teams can see emissions data alongside travel costs, supporting both carbon reduction and travel policy decisions. For organisations using platforms like SAP Concur, Expensify, or similar expense systems, API integration means travel emissions data is generated automatically without additional work for finance or sustainability teams.
Downstream transportation (Scope 3.9)
Organisations with distribution activities can manually log shipment details as needed, or connect logistics systems, warehouse management platforms, and shipping software to automatically pull shipment data and calculate emissions across their entire delivery network.
This visibility supports strategic and practical operational decisions about distribution centres, carrier selection, packaging optimisation, and modal shift opportunities. For retailers and manufacturers, understanding the emissions profile of different distribution routes is essential for credible Scope 3 reporting and reduction planning. API connections to transport management systems mean this data flows continuously without manual extraction.
Regulatory context
For organisations reporting under CSRD, Scope 3.6 is a mandatory disclosure where business travel emissions are material, and Scope 3.9 must be reported where downstream transportation is material to the business model. Route-based calculations provide the robust, auditable data that external assurance requires, with clear methodologies and traceable emission factors.
Beyond compliance, accurate travel and transportation data supports voluntary disclosures to CDP, sustainability-linked financing arrangements, and investor ESG questionnaires where Scope 3 measurement quality is increasingly assessed.
Integrated data management with AI-powered insights
The route-based functionality integrates seamlessly into KEY ESG's broader platform capabilities. Travel and transportation emissions sit alongside energy consumption, waste, water, and other environmental metrics within a single system. This integrated approach means sustainability teams can track progress across all material emissions sources, identify the highest-impact reduction opportunities, and report comprehensively to stakeholders, all from one platform.
KEY ESG's AI-powered functionality takes this further, actively helping you improve sustainability performance. The platform analyses your emissions data, including travel and transportation patterns, to identify trends, flag anomalies, and surface reduction opportunities you might otherwise miss. AI capabilities help interpret complex datasets, benchmark performance against peers, and generate insights that translate data into action.
Rather than simply collecting numbers, the platform guides users towards meaningful improvements, whether that's identifying the most carbon-intensive travel routes to prioritise for reduction, spotting opportunities to consolidate shipments, or highlighting where modal shifts could deliver the greatest emissions savings. This transforms ESG data management from a reporting exercise into a strategic tool for continuous improvement.
Moving from manual work to automated insights
Route-based emissions calculations make travel and transportation measurement straightforward, accurate, and integrated into your ESG data management. Whether you're manually tracking occasional business trips or automatically processing thousands of shipments, KEY ESG provides the tools to understand your emissions profile and take action to reduce it, with the flexibility to work the way that suits your organisation.
To see how route-based emissions calculations and API integrations could work for your organisation, get in touch with the KEY ESG team.
