Our Progress in 2024

In 2024, we made it easier for millions of travelers to experience the world, driven by our commitment to connecting people and places. While the travel industry has nearly fully recovered five years after the start of a global pandemic, complex sustainability challenges remain.

Recent Reports & Documents

  • All Documents
Resource Thumbnail
2024 Sustainability Report

Child on shoulders
2023 Sustainability Report

Planet

Emission Reductions

On our way to achieving net-zero emissions by 2040, we are working to reduce our Scope 1 & 2 emissions by 95% and our Scope 3 emissions by 50% (both against a 2019 baseline) by 2030.

Emissions chart

Scope 1 & 2 emissions
As of year-end 2024, we have reduced our absolute Scope 1 and 2 emissions 1 by 85% against the 2019 baseline, driven by the transition to 100% renewable electricity in our offices. This progress reflects our efforts to directly source renewable energy, with the recent installation of solar panels at our Bengaluru office adding to our portfolio of offices pursuing direct renewable energy solutions. Additionally, 94% of our Energy Attribute Certificates (EACs) are purchased within the country where the electricity is consumed.

Scope 3 emissions
Our target is to reduce our absolute Scope 3 emissions 2 by 50% against a 2019 baseline by the end of 2030 and by 90% by 2040. Emissions in this scope account for 98% of all of Booking Holdings’ reported GHG emissions and include the indirect emissions generated within our supply chain. In 2024, Booking Holdings’ Scope 3 emissions decreased year-over-year, driven by enhancements to our data infrastructure, including the integration of more company-specific emission factors. Supply chain emissions are more difficult to measure and mitigate, but we continue to work with our partners to assist them in reaching their own emissions reduction targets.

“Around 90% of our emissions come from our purchased goods and services, so it’s crucial we work with our vendors to improve data quality and calculation methodologies. In 2024, we developed a spend-based segmentation model to analyze the progress of our largest vendors.”3

Ashe Patankar, Vice President, Procurement, Booking Holdings

People and Communities

Human Rights Support

Students

Our approach to human rights is driven by the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises on Responsible Business Conduct. We continued to perform human rights impact assessments in 2024, proactively identifying potential human rights risks related to the use and development of generative AI technology, as well as potential adverse human rights impacts in our operations and value chain. We joined five anti-trafficking organizations and collaborated with the It’s a Penalty campaign during the 2024 Paris Olympics and Paralympics.

“As the headline sponsor of It’s a Penalty’s Paris 2024 campaign, we reached over 55 million people. We engaged over 400,000 partners with resources on modern slavery indicators and escalation paths, delivered keynote speeches in Paris, and promoted the campaign globally through media, employee briefings, and training materials.”

Jennifer Easterday, Head of Human Rights, Booking.com

Volunteering

People on bridge

The year 2024 marked 10 years of its Booking.com Cares program by launching the global Volunteering Plug-in campaign. This initiative helped teams, regional offices, and ERGs integrate volunteering into existing work meetings and events. Through the campaign and other activities, over 3,000 colleagues participated in volunteering efforts this year. Together, we contributed over 19,000 volunteer hours and supported more than 200 non-profit causes.

Employee Resource Groups

Cheerful Friends

Across our brands, 23 Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) are available to employees for the benefit of our overall workforce. In 2024, more than 15,000 employees participated in ERGs, and over 150 events took place.

Travel

Travel BHI - father and son on the beach

We focused on supporting our accommodation partners in their adoption of third-party sustainability-related certifications and launched a new product to help them obtain these certifications. In 2024, the number of accommodation partners with third-party sustainability-related certifications displayed on our platform increased by 43%, from 16,000 to 23,000.

We continue to work with our partners and the broader industry in coming together around certification methodologies.

Partnerships

Hotel room

In order to support and accelerate positive change in our industry and to help preserve destinations, we continued to engage with a variety of organizations, including our peers, partners, and others, to support research, investments, and partnerships.

“In 2024, the third year of our Eco Deals Program, Agoda empowered travelers to support marine, forest, and wildlife conservation projects across Southeast Asia with every program booking made at participating properties on our platform. The program expanded our partnership with the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), and we pledged $1 million across eight WWF projects.”

Damien Pfirsch, Chief Commercial Officer, Agoda

FOOTNOTES
1. Scope 1 emissions are direct greenhouse (GHG) emissions that occur from sources that are controlled or owned by an organization (e.g., emissions associated with fuel combustion in boilers, furnaces, vehicles). Scope 2 emissions are indirect GHG emissions associated with the purchase of electricity, steam, heat, or cooling.
2. Scope 3 emissions are the result of activities from assets not owned or controlled by the reporting organization, but that the organization indirectly affects in its value chain.
3. These (approximately 500) vendors represent roughly 87% of our annual spend.