This study examines the membership duration of travel and leisure (tourism) firms in the United Nations Global Compact Sustainability Reporting Programme between 2007 and 2020. Important factors of duration include firm characteristics (such as size and ownership) as well as contextual country-specific elements relating to environmental progress and control of corruption. Data originate from 693 member firms entering the programme at any point during the analysis period. Estimation results, based on the Cox proportional hazard model, show that tourism firms in countries that decouple emissions from economic growth are more likely to endure in the programme. A high level of corruption control in the home country is also associated with a significantly higher probability of membership duration. Larger firms, publicly listed firms and members of local Global Compact networks are also more likely to remain in the programme. Control of corruption is only important for duration outside the OECD; meanwhile, environmental performance at the country level is crucial independent of location. Environmental performance is particularly significant in more recent years, in parallel with an accelerated green transition in many countries.