Concur CO2 emissions reporting software for US business travel and Scope 3 Category 6

The short answer: SAP Concur shows CO2 emissions at the point of booking in Concur Travel, and the new Concur Travel calculates them with Thrust Carbon's ISO 14083-assured method. That covers trips booked through Concur. A Scope 3 business travel number for CDP, a customer questionnaire or SB 253 also needs the trips booked elsewhere, reimbursed mileage, rental cars, hotels and the rest of the expense lines, each with a factor and a source. Most US finance teams export Concur expense lines to CSV and classify them in a carbon accounting tool, from $2,340 a year.

This guide is for the controller, travel manager or sustainability lead at a US company that runs SAP Concur and has been asked for business travel emissions, usually as one line of a larger request. It covers what Concur's CO2 figures are, where they stop, which software turns the rest into a defensible number, and what that costs.

Does SAP Concur track CO2 emissions?

Yes, for travel booked in Concur Travel. Concur says it became "the first online booking tool to integrate emissions calculations tied to the ISO 14083 standard," through a partnership with Thrust Carbon, and that the data is live in the new Concur Travel. Travelers see an emissions figure for each option before they book.

ISO 14083 is a single framework for calculating greenhouse gas emissions from transport across air, rail, car and freight, written to stop every booking tool and travel agency from using a different formula. Thrust Carbon describes its approach as "multi-methodology": an enhanced ICAO method that accounts for real-world factors such as airspace closures, plus a dedicated formula that follows ISO 14083. Concur's announcement frames the benefit around Europe's CSRD, which tells you who the feature was built for first.

The University of Pittsburgh's rollout shows how this works in practice. Travelers who book through the university's Concur tool see emissions in pounds of CO2 for every flight option, and the university uses that data to centralize tracking. Its own announcement also states the limit plainly: "Flights booked outside of Concur cannot be tracked centrally."

What Concur CO2 emissions data leaves out of a Scope 3 business travel number

Booking-time emissions cover what was booked in Concur Travel. Under the GHG Protocol, Scope 3 Category 6 (business travel) covers employee travel in vehicles the company does not own, by any route the trip was paid for. The gap between those two sets is where most of the work sits.

The share of travel booked outside the tool varies a lot by company, and travel managers usually know it roughly from their compliance reports. Even at a company with a strict booking policy, the expense side carries the mileage, the taxis, the conference hotel booked on the event site and the flight a sales rep changed at the airport. If travelers still submit paper hotel and taxi receipts, scan the receipts into line items before they reach the expense export, so every trip has a dollar amount, a date and ideally a city.

Which software reports Concur CO2 emissions for Scope 3?

There are four realistic routes, and they answer different questions. The first two measure travel booked in a tool; the last one builds the full number from what the company actually paid.

If business travel is the only number you owe, and nearly all of it is booked in Concur, the booking data may be enough. In practice the travel line rarely arrives alone. A customer questionnaire or CDP response asks for Scope 1, Scope 2 and the relevant Scope 3 categories together, and the purchased goods and services line is usually far bigger than travel at a manufacturer or distributor. Building travel from the expense export and everything else from the AP export in one tool means one method, one factor set and one evidence trail. Our Ledger plan covers one entity with Scope 1, 2 and spend-based Scope 3 screening; Compliance adds activity-based factors, supplier data requests and report packs. The details are on our plans page.

How to export Concur expense data for carbon accounting

The export is a normal finance report, not a sustainability project. You need approved expense entries for the reporting year with enough detail to tell a flight from a hotel from a mileage claim.

1. Pull approved expense entries for the year. Include expense type, vendor or merchant, amount in USD, transaction date, and city or route where Concur captured it.
2. Add mileage fields. Personal car mileage claims carry miles, which is better than spend. Keep that column.
3. Export to Excel or CSV. Import the file as it comes out; the columns are mapped on import.
4. Review the low-confidence lines. Each line comes back with a scope, a Scope 3 category, the factor used, a reason and a confidence score. Generic merchants and mixed lines land in the review queue.
5. Keep the evidence link. Every tonne stays linked to its expense line, which is what a customer or assurance provider asks to see.

Spend-based factors for air travel come from EPA's USEEIO model, and distance-based factors for cars come from the business travel table in EPA's Emission Factors Hub. The method and its limits are explained in how to calculate Scope 3 emissions from spend. Companies on NetSuite will find the same expense-report logic in our guide to carbon accounting for NetSuite expense reports.

Is business travel required for SB 253 or CDP?

Not for the first SB 253 report, but yes from 2027. SB 253 applies to companies with more than $1 billion in total annual revenue that do business in California. The first report, due November 10, 2026, covers Scope 1 and Scope 2 only. Scope 3, which includes business travel, starts with 2027 reporting.

CDP's climate questionnaire asks companies to report the Scope 3 categories that are relevant to them, and business travel is relevant for almost every office-based company, so it shows up in most responses. Customer supplier questionnaires usually ask for a Scope 3 total with the categories listed. For the SB 253 timeline and tool requirements, see SB 253 reporting software; for the full Scope 3 picture, see Scope 3 emissions software.

What to ask before you pay for a travel emissions tool

• Does it see travel booked outside Concur? If it only reads booking data, the expense side still needs a second method.
• Which method and factors does it use? ISO 14083, ICAO, DEFRA and EPA give different answers for the same flight. Pick one and document it.
• Can it report the rest of Scope 3? Travel is one of 15 categories. A tool that stops at travel means a second tool for the bigger categories.
• Can an auditor trace a tonne to a transaction? SB 253 limited assurance on Scope 1 and 2 starts with 2026 data reported in 2027, and Scope 3 assurance follows later.
• What does it cost per year, in writing? Quoted platforms rarely stay at the first number once seats and entities are added.

Getting a business travel number this quarter

The fastest defensible route for most US Concur customers is to use the booking emissions where they exist as a cross-check, and to build the reported number from the expense export plus the AP export. That gives business travel, utilities, fuel and purchased goods in one inventory, with a factor and a source line behind every tonne. Upload a sample export in the tool above to see how your lines classify before you buy.