ITM ANNOUNCES ICARUS ENVIRONMENTAL AWARDS FOR 3RD YEAR
Judges Delighted To See Advancement Across Business Travel Supplier Base
The Institute of Travel & Meetings (ITM) UK & Ireland has announced the winners of its ICARUS Environmental Supplier Awards for 2009/10. The awards, in their third year, were created by the association as part of their CSR project, ICARUS and have seen a number of companies carry off awards for creating solutions to assist travel buyers to reduce the environmental impact of their travel programmes.
The judging panel, chaired by Dr Keith Mason, Director of the Business Travel Research Centre at Cranfield University was made up of travel and environmental experts including Dr Emma Harvey - International Centre for Responsible Tourism, Leeds Metropolitan University; Dr Rebecca Hawkins - Centre for Environmental Studies in the Hospitality Industry, Oxford Brooks University; Dr Paul Hooper - Centre for Air Transport and the Environment, Manchester Metropolitan University; Tim Johnson - Director, Aviation Environment Federation; Toby Kent - Sustainability and Climate Change Team, PricewaterhouseCoopers, and; Prof Peter Morrell - Dept of Air Transport, Cranfield University
The panel considered submissions from airlines, hotels, rail operators, ground transport operators, travel management companies, consultancies and technology providers. Airlines that made submissions this year accounted for nearly 70% of UK airline capacity.
All submissions were judged against five key criteria, being ; Innovation, Leadership, Time-resilience, Scalability/Transferability and Case study material.
Dr Keith Mason, commenting on the awards, said, "In the third year of ICARUS' Supplier Awards, the judges were looking for serious commitment by companies to develop sustainable business practices. Evidence was sought in terms of leadership by senior management to their employees and engagement with stakeholder. Companies ought to be using suitable metrics to measure the impact of their policies on their trading environment. Setting realistic but challenging targets to reduce environmental impacts are key in order to drive change. Companies also need to monitor their performance to ensure that targets are being achieved."
Dr Mason also highlighted that judging considerations were made in light of the quality of the submissions of the winners of the two previous years with a decision not to award or commend in categories where a consistently high level was not achieved.
ITM has announced four supplier award winners and two commended entries as follows:
- Aviation Winner: Flybe
- Accommodation Winner : the Cavendish Hotel (Previous 2008/9 winner)
- Rail Transportation Winner: Eurostar (Previous 2008/9 winner)
- Agency Winner : CWT (Previous winner across both 2007/8 and 2008/9)
- Aviation Commended: British Airways (Previous 2008/9 winner)
- Ground Transportation Commended : Carey
Noting that the airline entries accounted for nearly 70% of UK airline capacity, Dr Mason explained why Flybe had been awarded the aviation award this year and BA a commendation. "Flybe's modernisation of its fleet using young turbo-prop aircraft mean carbon emissions are low for the sectors that they operate. Its eco-labelling concept, which has been applied to its flights, uses the easily understood customer labelling notation common to fridges, washing machines, and even houses for sale. The judges were also pleased to see continuing commitment by British Airways to developing strategies to minimise their environmental impact within their wider Corporate Social Responsibility programme."
Full details of the winners and the judges comments are available in the Awards and Accreditation pages and entries for the 4th annual awards will be scheduled for October 2010.
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