Building on a 10 year commitment to improving the sustainability of travel, TUI Travel has announced its new Sustainable Holidays Plan 2012-2014, marking the next step in its journey towards a more sustainable future.
The Plan details no fewer than 20 commitments, including a pledge to operate Europe’s most fuel efficient airlines and a seal of approval from Forum for the Future.
TUI, sustainability and the hospitality industry
The hospitality industry should take particular note: the first four of the commitments relate directly to hotels, and the next two could have a direct or indirect influence on hospitality venues. The message is clear: TUI is serious about sustainability, and will require its ‘suppliers’ to be serious also. The stated commitments are:
– We will feature over 3,000 hotels certified as more sustainable
– All differentiated hotels will have a credible sustainability certification
– 50% of differentiated hotels will have an environmental management standard
– Our differentiated hotels will achieve an average 24kWh and 400 litres for energy and water consumption per person per night (reducing our relative energy consumption by 10% and relative water consumption by 20%).
AND
– We will invest in projects which drive environmental and socio-economic improvements in key destinations and replicate them elsewhere
– TUI Travel will demonstrate responsible leadership by influencing the sustainable management of tourist destinations
Responsible leadership
TUI is part of the FTSE4Good Index and Carbon Disclosure Leadership Index, and a core company value is “Responsible Leadership”: the businesses aspires to practice this across the board, from helping customers to choose ‘greener and fairer’ hotels to making their planes more efficient.
TUI Travel’s vision is to make travel experiences special whilst minimising environmental impact, respecting culture and people and bringing economic benefits to communities.
With this in mind, TUI Travel has set itself four goals to achieve by 2015:
- Deliver 10 million ‘greener and fairer’ holidays
- Operate Europe’s most fuel-efficient airlines and save more than 20,000 tonnes of carbon from our ground operations
- Our colleagues will rate TUI Travel as a leader in sustainability
- Customers to regard TUI Travel as a leader in delivering more sustainable holidays
To achieve these goals, the travel Group has identified 20 challenging and measurable commitments (see below) against which it will report progress annually.
Peter Long, Chief Executive of TUI Travel PLC commented:
“Achieving our vision is critical to the future health of our own business, the wider industry, the customers we serve and the communities they visit. Hence our new Sustainable Holidays Plan – four over-arching sustainable development goals, underpinned by 20 challenging and measurable commitments – which businesses across TUI Travel will work to deliver and through which we aim to lead the industry, creating change at scale.’’
Achievements to date
Progress towards these targets has already been made by several parts of the Group. For example:
- Thomson’s Sensatori Resort in Crete saved over €200,000 by reducing energy and water in recent years
- TUI Travel’s investment in renewable energy projects in key destinations is due to deliver 1 million tonnes of CO2 savings by 2014
- £21 million cost savings have been achieved through environmental initiatives between 2008 and 2011
- 5,800 of TUI UK & Ireland’s colleagues trained in sustainable tourism in 2011
- Thomson Airways was the first UK airline to fly customers on sustainable biofuel
The 20 Challenging three year Commitments to achieving TUI’s goals:
1) We will feature over 3,000 hotels certified as more sustainable
2) All differentiated hotels will have a credible sustainability certification
3) 50% of differentiated hotels will have an environmental management standard
4) Our differentiated hotels will achieve an average 24kWh and 400 litres for energy and water consumption per person per night (reducing our relative energy consumption by 10% and relative water consumption by 20%).
5) We will invest in projects which drive environmental and socio-economic improvements in key destinations and replicate them elsewhere
6) TUI Travel will demonstrate responsible leadership by influencing the sustainable management of tourist destinations
7) TUI Travel’s airlines’ per passenger carbon emissions will reduce by 6% (baseline 2008)
8) We will trial sustainable biofuel on flights and explore a long term sustainable biofuels strategy
9) We will recycle cabin waste generated on-board 50% of TUI Travel airline flights
10) TUI Travel airlines will be ISO 14001 certified (an international environmental management standard)
11) We will reduce CO2 from our major premises, retail shops and brochure production by 10%
12) We will make measurable environmental improvements to our water transport operations
13) We will make measurable environmental improvements to our ground transport operations
14) We will deliver sustainability training to new colleagues, customer facing colleagues and management development programmes
15) We will launch a sustainability communications campaign across the Group
16) Our colleagues will dedicate 100,000 hours to volunteering
17) We will drive product and process innovations through sustainability
18) We will engage five million holidaymakers in sustainable tourism
19) We will reach all customers with improved sustainability communications
20) We will promote greener and fairer holidays to customers online
For more information about sustainability at TUI Travel visit www.tuitravelplc.com/sustainability
You can view sustainability reports from the businesses here: www.tuitravelplc.com/sustainability/reporting
And the full TUI three year strategy here: TUI Travel PLC launches new three year sustainability strategy (80KB PDF)