Here’s to a Greener Future Are Travel Management Companies taking sustainability seriously? This is a question being asked by corporate clients the world over. Today, companies have heightened their sustainability objectives, and rightly so. Sustainability is no longer a ‘buzz-word’ to use in meetings or within an RFI, it needs to be more proactive than that. So, we would like to introduce to you our new brand: ‘Sunways Sustainable Business Travel’. Yes, our entire business is built upon travel; both leisure and corporate, but travellers will always want to travel . How do we make that sustainable? A realistic solution is carbon offsetting via the planting of trees. Planting trees and re-wilding indigenous forests has been proven by environmental scientists to be a leading solution in the battle again Co2 emissions. Every tree planted by Sunways Sustainable Business Travel could consume around 164 kilos of Co2 within the first 10 years. As trees mature, they absorb more Co2, and with an average lifespan of 150 years, every tree planted has the capability of absorbing 3,100 kilos of Co2. It is a simple yet hugely impactful approach that will create more change, provide greater tree coverage and ultimately, promote a greener and healthier planet for us to live on. Our pledge to you is a simple one - as a client, if you choose to join the carbon offsetting programme, we will ‘donate a tree when you travel. Mark Colley, Managing Director at Sunways Travel
A Sustainable Partnership Our new partnership with Trees4Travel has inspired change in our company and helped give birth to our new brand—Sunways Sustainable Business Travel. In doing so, we have realised that more action is needed in the world of business travel sustainability. This new and exciting partnership has allowed us to not only explore the world of sustainability further, but we’re now able to provide an green initiative that is simple, forward-thinking and innovative. Working with Travelogix, our long-standing technology partner, and now Trees4Travel, we are capable of offering a simple carbon offsetting solution for our corporate clients, a solution that we feel is crucial in the search for long-term sustainable travel. Corporate social responsibility objectives are changing for businesses. They are more important than ever when discussing personal and corporate accountability. It highlights a company’s commitment to manage the social, environmental and economic effects of its operations. Therefore, sustainability in travel is vitally important and creating this new brand is the first step into a greener future. Our pledge is a simple one, and this can be fully realised due to the partnership with Trees4Travel. As a client, if you choose to join the carbon offsetting programme, then we will step forward with our pledge, our promise to you that we will ‘donate a tree when you travel’. Nico Nicholas, Co-Founder and CEO at Trees4Travel commented: “Sunways was one of our first partners as we launched Trees4Travel. So often business opts for a ‘watching brief’ on any new technology, and carbon offsetting in particular is regarded by too many as a complex and somewhat unattainable goal.
Nico Nicholas Co-Founder & CEO Trees4Travel
“Their decision to donate trees when their customers travel is another example of their dedication to more mindful and meaningful travel and the belief that we can travel ‘well’ for all our sakes.”
“Sunways took a very different view. Proactive from the outset, they were in our corner, supporting our ‘simple, tangible and inexpensive’ messaging and helping us to establish ourselves in the travel industry through introductions to like-minded clients. “Their decision to donate trees when their customers travel is another example of their dedication to more mindful and meaningful travel and the belief that we can travel ‘well’ for all our sakes.”
Why Trees? We know there’s a myriad of ways in which we can cleanse our planet of Co2 emissions, but how many of them are actionable at such a small cost? How many of these are specifically aimed at reforestation? And how many are available to you within the travel industry? Planting trees offers a uniquely simple, yet highly effective solution to global green house emissions, and this has been championed by many leading scientist across the world. Prof. Dr. Tom Crowther, a specialist in ecosystem ecology, has led the way in the re-wilding of our planet and believes that tree planting is a simple yet deeply impactful solution in the fight against carbon emissions.
Prof. Dr. Tom Crowther Ecosystem Ecologist and chief scientific advisor to UN’s trillion tree campaign
“Planting Trees in the fight against carbon emissions is overwhelmingly more powerful than any other climate change solution.”
We know that this isn’t the only solution, but it is certainly one in which everyone can play an active role in. Whether you travel for business, or a few times a year with your family, we can all offset our carbon footprint and re-balance the earth with tree planting and reforestation. The world economic forum has drawn attention to this movement by launching “a global initiative to grow, restore and conserve 1 trillion trees arounds the world—in a bid to restore biodiversity and help fight against climate change” (Robin Pomeroy— Digital Editor World Economic Forum).
The project, entitled 1t.org, aims to unite institutions and individuals alike so that a “massscale nature restoration” project can take place.
Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum, said: “The next decade must see unprecedented levels of collaboration if we are to meet global climate, biodiversity and Sustainable Development Goals. 1t.org presents an important example of how stakeholders from all walks of life and all ages can work together to achieve a single, globally significant goal.” There is weight behind this movement, and we feel that offering a simple sustainability tool to our clients is simply the start for our new brand, and more broadly, the restoration of our planet. Corporate clients are yearning for a way in which they can offset their carbon footprint, while simultaneously driving behavior and policy change internally. We can assist with all this and more. We want to get you to where you need to be, but in a considered and environmentally sound way.
Klaus Schwab Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum
“1t.org presents an important example of how stakeholders from all walks of life and all ages can work together to achieve a single, globally significant goal.”
Our Sustainability Pledge “The environmental impact of travel is moving higher up the corporate agenda and we are now starting to see a shift towards the carbon emissions of a trip being just as important as its cost. Sunways Business Travel has long since recognised the importance of supporting our customers’ social responsibility policies. As we emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic, we are experiencing a far greater emphasis on solving the impact that travel has on the environment. Rather than providing a tick-box solution for our corporate travel managers, we wanted to acknowledge our own role in corporate travel’s ecosystem and actively position Sunways as part of the solution. So we asked ourselves; how can this be done in a workable, cost-effective way whilst providing an authentic solution to our customers? We found the answer to what we had been searching for in Trees4Travel. Trees4Travel’s ethos of planting indigenous forests, which restore biodiversity and the natural ecosystem, provided instant appeal to us and resonated with our own environmental beliefs. The simplicity of their solution was also highly attractive to us – what could be easier than planting trees to offset carbon emissions? As a result, we wanted to donate our own trees for each trip that our participating corporate clients take . We are uniquely positioned to support our customers’ carbon offsetting, and this was an opportunity too great for us to miss. From this we launched our new brand - Sunways Sustainable Business Travel, which is born from the decades of experience we have in corporate travel and combined with our passion and commitment to providing carbon neutral travel in the future.
Our customers can easily switch to The Sustainable Travel service where they will instantly benefit from our granular Co2 reporting capabilities and the ease of planting their own trees based on the data this provides. From the moment they join, we will donate a tree for each trip they take.” Mark Colley Managing Director Sunways Business Travel