Podcast: Goodwings CEO on easy, sustainable business travel

Sustainability is a defining challenge for corporate travel programs, but for many companies the gap between intention and action remains wide. Goodwings, a Copenhagen-based travel management company, has built its entire platform around closing that gap.

For the 21st episode of The Travel Is a Human Emotion Podcast, Spotnana’s SVP of Marketing Justin Schuster spoke with Christian Møller-Hølst, CEO of Goodwings, to learn how Goodwings is tackling corporate travel’s carbon problem by combining behavioral science, real-time emissions data, and a business model that makes sustainable travel the path of least resistance for companies and travelers alike.

Sustainability as a business imperative

Goodwings serves mid-size and enterprise clients across more than 30 industries, with the majority based in Northern Europe. For many of those clients, particularly in professional services, architecture, and management consulting, business travel is the dominant source of greenhouse gas emissions, often accounting for more than 80% of their total carbon footprint.

“In many industries, business travel is significantly material,” Møller-Hølst said. “That means you need the right tools for measuring, and later for reporting.”

He is direct about the gap between talk and action that characterizes much of the market today. “Sustainability is something everybody talks about, but very few actually take action on,” said Møller-Hølst

His framework for closing that gap rests on three pillars: accurate measurement, target-setting, and real-time monitoring that enables meaningful in-year decisions.

Goodwings’ proprietary climate technology allows companies to set carbon targets alongside budgetary targets, distribute those targets throughout the organization using a waterfall model, and track emissions in real time. For many clients, that level of visibility transforms sustainability from an annual reporting exercise into an operational discipline.

“For many companies, it becomes a material year-on-year achievement,” Møller-Hølst said. “You can demonstrate to the world that you’re taking serious steps, not just continuing business as usual and buying cheap offsets.”

Regulation, talent, and the real drivers of demand

The EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive has been a significant catalyst for companies building out their emissions reporting capabilities, even after its postponement. Møller-Hølst, however, believes the more durable driver of demand is attracting and retaining talent.

“I think people are underestimating the expectations from future talent,” he said. “If you want to attract the bright minds of tomorrow, they care about the paycheck, but they don’t compromise. You need to be able to prove that you’re taking real steps to improve your environmental footprint.”

For companies earlier in their sustainability journey, Møller-Hølst emphasizes the business case rather than the moral one. For example, consulting firms often can’t participate in RFPs without accurate greenhouse gas reporting. 

“The data we deliver actually unlocks business opportunities,” he said. “You need to explain the business value. Once you do that and you have senior management involvement, any company can find a budget.”

A platform built on the right partners

To deliver a complete travel management solution, Goodwings took a deliberate approach to partnership rather than attempting to build every capability in-house.

For booking technology, Goodwings selected Spotnana. “We wanted a booking tool that was flexible, fast, and agile — able to access new types of content and payment options,” Møller-Hølst said. “We found that Spotnana delivers exactly that.” 

He also cited the responsiveness of the Spotnana team as a differentiating factor, particularly as Goodwings works to address the complexity of serving multiple European markets, each with its own content types, API connections, and payment methods.

For fulfillment, Goodwings partnered with JTB Business Travel. “Being a Japanese company, they take client needs very seriously,” Møller-Hølst said. JTB agents issue tickets and handle calls under the Goodwings brand across multiple countries and languages, freeing the Goodwings team to focus on client relationships, key account management, and the continued development of its climate technology.

“The strategy from the beginning was not to kid ourselves that we could do everything at once,” he said.

Quality offsets and the SAF transition

On the offsets side, Goodwings takes an uncompromising position on quality. The company invests in VCS-verified reforestation projects, avoiding the deforestation credits that drew significant criticism following high-profile media scrutiny of the broader offset market.

“You need to be a little nerdy on this,” Møller-Hølst said. “If you’re not, you end up creating risk for your clients, and that’s the last thing you want.”

Goodwings also offers clients access to sustainable aviation fuel credits and, for those willing to commit to longer-term contracts, options to co-finance eSAF projects. 

“We can’t expect airlines to do it themselves, especially when everyone is so price-focused and airlines are delivering only what we’re willing to pay for,” Møller-Hølst said. “We need the private sector to realize it has a role to play in driving this demand.”

The next frontier: contrails, forecasting, and primary data

Goodwings’ product roadmap reflects a push toward greater scientific rigor and more precise decision-making tools.

The company recently received recognition from a Big Four auditor for the granularity of its emissions calculations, a milestone Møller-Hølst sees as validation of an approach that prioritizes accuracy over convenience. Its emissions forecasting tool allows clients to model the impact of policy changes throughout the year, from restricting business class on long-haul routes to prompting travelers to consolidate frequent short-haul trips.

“If you’re making four trips a month between Copenhagen and London, we can flag that and say: is there any way you can bundle those? The cost would be about the same, swapping a return ticket for a hotel night, but your emissions could be reduced by up to 50%,” he explained.

Goodwings is also investing in contrail tracking, an area of climate science that remains underappreciated in the travel industry. The white streaks left by aircraft can form into thin clouds up to 12 kilometers wide that amplify the greenhouse gas effect, an impact that is significantly worse at night when the clouds’ daytime benefit of reflecting sunlight is absent.

Goodwings recently became a Science Based Targets initiative signatory, a commitment Møller-Holst sees as both a statement of intent and a way of holding the company to the same standards its clients strive to meet.

Travel as human connection

The Travel Is a Human Emotion podcast takes its name from a belief that travel is ultimately about bringing people together. When Schuster asked Møller-Hølst to reflect on that idea, his answer drew on both deep history and present-day urgency.

“Traveling is one of the most human things we do,” he said. “Humanity has moved from Ethiopia to basically every corner of the world. Movement is part of our DNA.”

For Møller-Hølst, that’s precisely what makes the sustainability challenge so important — and so contradictory. The sector that connects people across borders and cultures should, of all sectors, be leading the effort to preserve the planet those connections depend on.

“If you’re facilitating human connection while preventing a habitable future on this earth, there is a real contradiction. The travel sector should be in the driver’s seat on this, and it’s not. That’s my daily motivation.”