Two major sustainability initiatives will help offset the carbon impact of this year’s Business Travel People Awards.
One of the event’s sponsors, Direct ATPI, has already stepped in to offset the travel of guests to and from the ceremony, which takes place in London next week (September 25).
All guests have been asked to complete a form in advance detailing their return mileage and what form of transport they will be taking.
With purposeful travel in mind, the form also encourages guests to make their attendance to the evening ceremony count by arranging other meetings around it.
The venue, the Grand Connaught Rooms, is well served by public transport, so it is hoped that the form will encourage more guests to ditch their cars.
Direct ATPI has chosen three projects to offset this year’s Business Travel People Awards emissions.
“These projects are the Blaston Regenerative Farming project based in Leicestershire, the BURNS cookstoves project in Kenya that supports local women and avoids forest degradation, and a peatland-based emissions avoidance project in Indonesia that prevents the release of millions of tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere each year,” said Pippa Ganderton, Director of Global Account Management, ATPI.
“They show a fantastic cross section of ATPI Halo’s portfolio, each one supporting a whole host of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.”
In addition, for each attendee at the awards ceremony Trees4Travel will be planting a tree, backed up by UN certified carbon credits.
It means nearly 300 mangrove trees will be planted in Kenya, where the company has a reforestation project.
“These tropical marine forests contain some of the most powerful trees on our planet – an acre of mangroves can store five to 10 times more carbon that an acre of rainforest, therefore, planting and conserving these amazing forests is essential to the wellbeing of our planet and people,” said co-founder Elke Nicholas.
“In recent decades over 90% of Kenya has been deforested and 42% of the population live below the poverty line.
“Reforestation is currently not only one of the most powerful climate actions we can take to help reverse climate change, but it will also help to restore eco-systems, biodiversity and support local communities, alleviating poverty.”
Other initiatives have been put in place to reduce the environmental impact of the event, many of them inspired by advice from experts in the industry.
