Reducing carbon emissions by flying less is a corporate focus that has had some help along the way in recent years.

The inability to travel in for work meetings during the Covid lockdown meant that many companies — some of which had doubtless been moving towards conducting more meetings online on cost grounds anyway — were forced to convene by screen. Once the restrictions were lifted, those habits stuck, with many firms commenting that executives typically flew far less on short-term or day trips for their jobs.

This week, Eurostar announced a major intended expansion of its services and pegged the rationale on companies wanting more sustainable business travel options in Europe, by taking the train rather than the plane.

The rail operator has announced new routes from London to Frankfurt and Geneva. It threw into question the prospect of many more train options between the UK capital and northern Europe’s major finance centres in the future, with any flight of between one and two hours potentially comparable time-wise to a rail journey lasting four or five hours, given the time taken to get to and from airports.

Working on a train is also typically easier than doing so before, during and after a flight. But it’s the emissions considerations that have been capturing most of the attention, with speculation that new routes to make travel more sustainable will see both business travel by train and route competition increase.

The Telegraph reported that competitors will now be asked by the rail regulator to declare their possible plans for expanding international routes. The Guardian was one of several media to speculate that the Virgin group would also now throw its hat into the ring and seek to offer intercontinental rail services.

Yet there has also been caution on how soon such services would run. Eurostar itself has targeted sometime in the early 2030s.

“Until we see what trains they order, and when those will be delivered, we cannot call these ‘plans’ but more like vague ideas,” said Jon Worth, an international rail consultant, quoted in the FT piece.

As Fortune pointed out, the prospective two new city routes would largely seek to attract the financial services industries, but for broader purposes there are plenty of cities within the upper end of five hours of London. Berlin, Dusseldorf, Rotterdam, Strasbourg and many others could potentially be served, on paper at least.

As the BBC pointed out, Eurostar already runs services to the French Alps in ski season. Uses beyond business meeting day-returns may not be off the table.
Business Green hailed it as a potential new “golden age” of sustainable travel in Europe. Maybe, but this week’s news may also have a catalytic effect in spurring investment and improving options in ways that make travel more sustainable overall.