Destination green: Thomson and First Choice step up commitment to sustainable tourism

Q. You’ve just launched a new campaign to encourage holidaymakers to reduce their carbon emissions when they travel with you. Can you tell me more about this and why you are doing it?

A. For about the last decade we’ve been focused on the airline part of the business and on fuel reduction. We’ve been setting reduction targets because it makes sense from an environmental point of view and commercial point of view.

From 2012 onwards we’ll be part of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme for the first time, which we broadly welcome because fuel efficiency should be encouraged and rewarded. There’s also legislation here in the UK – the Carbon Reduction Commitment – that affects our UK shops and head offices. So we’ve been setting reduction targets for a number of years and we have a process and management in place to achieve those.

We recognise there’s a link between good commercial performance and good environmental performance, but up until now we’ve been concerned to make sure that we have made substantial progress in our own house and with our suppliers before talking more openly to our customers.

It’s only latterly that we’ve started talking to our customers about sustainable tourism and 'Holidays Forever’, which we launched a few weeks ago, is the first time we’ve packaged up our activities into 20 commitments.

Holidays Forever is about doing what we can so that future generations can enjoy travelling forever.

Q. What are your Holiday Forever key commitments?

A. Our airlines are very active in reducing carbon emissions and there is also a great focus on working with our suppliers in destinations. We’ve developed the Travelife Sustainability System with ABTA, which is a set of guidelines and standards and audit tools and we’re rolling it out to our priority suppliers – around 400 – that represent 50 per cent of our [environmental] impact.

Over the next year we plan to incorporate a minimum standard to all our suppliers, of which there are several thousand, which means they will all have to subscribe to Travelife to continue being a supplier.

We estimate that 25 per cent of our passengers will be staying in a Travelife-awarded hotel this year and one of our commitments is to have 50 per cent of our customers staying in a Travelife hotel by the end of next summer.

Q. Given that you are doing so much to reduce the environmental impact of your destinations, how much are you doing around biodiversity?

A. It is in our radar – at the highest level because we recognise that a proportion of the value of our business is directly linked to biodiversity.

We are working with our suppliers to help them preserve biodiversity through water reduction, wastewater reduction, energy use and support for community and environment.

We are also a contributor to the charity the Travel Foundation, which does wider work in destinations. It is involved in a plethora of projects.

We are not saying we have all the answers, but biodiversity is something we are actively debating.

Q. Why are companies such as yours taking this sort of action and what benefits if any are you seeing from it?

A. The more we’ve done, the more we’ve experienced business and reputational benefits and that is why it is becoming increasingly embedded as business as usual.
We’ve got enhanced engagement and commitment of our colleagues and interest of customers as well. Online research over the last three years has shown a surprisingly high concern among customers about the environment and while they are not necessarily going to pay more to protect it, people want to travel with a clear conscience.

But we are still at the very foothills of the journey.

Q. You say you are at the foothills of this journey. The travel and airline industry has been very hard hit by events such as the recession and volcanic ash. Has this held you back at all on your journey?

A. Our own perspective is we continue to focus on working towards emissions reductions. We aim to reduce our emissions by six per cent in absolute terms and relative terms from a 2006/2007 baseline by 2013/14.

And we are investing in the latest technology to drive down carbon emissions. The big news at the Farnborough Air Show, last week, was the arrival of Boeing 787, which will be 20 per cent more fuel efficient and much quieter. And we are the European launch customer for the Boeing 787 and as a group will take delivery of 13 Boeing 787 planes with the first arriving in 2012.

We will keep our foot on the accelerator to drive down carbon emissions because of the savings that can be achieved. Last year, we reduced energy by three per cent across our 900 shops and this year we will reduce it by seven per cent.

Q. What are your long-term sustainability objectives?

A. In the UK it is for all our colleagues to have a real understanding of what sustainability will mean for their role so they can help us become a more sustainable business.

We are also committed to driving increased customer interested in sustainabilityand to working to ensure that our operations in destinations have as positive an environmental, social and economic impact as possible.