Business Travel
Definition:
Scope 3 emissions from business travel includes emissions from transportation of employees for business-related activities in vehicles not owned by Stanford, such as for faculty flying to academic conferences. Stanford has also expanded this definition to include all university-sponsored travel for students and visitors, an exception within higher education that does not typically apply in other industries.
View the full Business Travel White Paper
Methodology:
Air Travel:
Procurement data is used to generate reports with destination and arrival airports for each trip, which is used to determine flight mileage. Distance-specific EPA emission factors and a radiative forcing factor are applied to each flight.
Lodging:
Procurement data on hotel nights is used to calculate emissions using DEFRA emissions factors.
Ground Transportation:
a complex system using procurement data was developed to estimate emissions from ground transportation, but ground transportation ultimately resulted in only 0.4% of emissions. Thus, it will not be recalculated on an annual basis.
Read more information on how to travel sustainably.