Only one in four UK business decision-makers can easily compare the carbon impact of accommodation before booking rooms for mobile workers, according to research from workforce travel platform Roomex.
The company’s Accommodation Visibility Gap report found that 24% of decision-makers had access to readily comparable carbon information at the point of booking. A further 33% could see data for only some accommodation options, while 38% received the information after booking or did not receive it at all.
The research draws on surveys of 510 UK business decision-makers and 534 employees who travel for work. Workforce accommodation was considered essential or important by 71% of organisations because employees needed to reach sites, projects, clients, and temporary workplaces.
Cost, location, availability, and project urgency took priority over carbon impact in 85% of organisations at least some of the time. Almost two-thirds said bookers required approval or could not select a lower-carbon option when it was more expensive, farther from the workplace, or both.
Keith Watson, president at Roomex, said: “Businesses are being asked to reduce the carbon impact of workforce travel without always having the information they need to do it. The research shows that carbon data is often missing, difficult to compare, or only available after accommodation has been booked. By that point, the decision has already been made.
“Businesses need clear, comparable carbon information while they are weighing up cost, location and availability. That allows them to choose a lower-carbon option where it works for the job.”
The findings distinguish between recording emissions and influencing the decision that creates them. Carbon associated with accommodation may be calculated after a journey has taken place, but retrospective reporting cannot change the hotel, location, length of stay, or travel pattern already selected.
Workforce accommodation sits across travel, procurement, operations, finance, human resources, and sustainability. Responsibility can therefore become fragmented, with one team negotiating rates, another approving travel, a site manager choosing the location, and a sustainability team receiving emissions data weeks later.
Roomex found that ownership of accommodation was shared or unclear in 72% of organisations. Fragmented responsibility can weaken policy enforcement and prevent cost, employee wellbeing, project performance, and emissions from being considered together.
Location creates one of the clearest trade-offs. A hotel with a lower reported carbon footprint may require a longer daily journey to the worksite, increasing fuel use, travel time, fatigue, and safety risk. The closest accommodation, however, may consume more energy or provide poorer emissions data.
Carbon information must therefore support an assessment of the complete stay rather than one isolated figure. Data quality can vary according to whether estimates use building-level energy consumption, recognised averages, occupancy assumptions, or information supplied directly by accommodation providers.
Commercial constraints remain decisive. Construction, engineering, maintenance, utilities, logistics, and infrastructure companies may need rooms at short notice near locations with limited supply.
A lower-carbon option has little operational value if it cannot accommodate the team, meet shift patterns, remain within budget, or provide appropriate rest between demanding work periods. Approval rules that consider carbon without those requirements may be ignored in practice.
Connecting search, booking, approval, and reporting systems would allow carbon to appear alongside price, distance, availability, cancellation terms, and employee requirements before a booking is confirmed.
Accommodation forms part of a broader approach to resilient business travel because the quality and location of a stay can affect emissions, rest, attendance, productivity, project cost, and safety.
Procurement teams may also need to distinguish between highly precise but incomplete data and broader estimates available across most properties. A theoretically superior measure offers limited value if it applies to only a small proportion of the market.
Roomex supports carbon estimates through its partnership with SQUAKE, enabling organisations to view CO2e information alongside other booking data. The report calls for greater integration so that emissions can influence the original decision rather than appear only in a later report.
Some 59% of respondents expected accommodation reporting to play a larger role during the next five years. Progress will depend on whether carbon figures become comparable enough to support procurement decisions and whether companies allow bookers to choose lower-emission options when cost and distance differences remain operationally acceptable.
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