UNIGLOBE Travel South Asia Launches India’s first Carbon Reduction program for travelers
July 29, New Delhi: UNIGLOBE Travel South Asia together with The CarbonNeutral Company, one of the world’s leading carbon offset and carbon management businesses, today launched a Carbon Offset Program to help travelers reduce the carbon impact of their travel. This makes UNIGLOBE Travel the first Travel Management Company in India to develop such a program aimed at giving air travelers the option of managing their carbon footprint.
Launching the UNIGLOBE Carbon Offset, the Union Minister for Civil Aviation, Praful Patel cited, “Currently airlines carry 1.6 Billion passengers and up to 30 Million tons of freight annually. As per projected forecasts, the aviation industry will more than double from 2002 levels until 2022, the number of aircraft will double and the RPK (Revenue Passenger Kilometres) will increase by more than two and a half times. The overall result is that this fast paced growth will have a direct effect on the absolute volumes of Green House Gas (GHG) emissions. It is encouraging to see that UNIGLOBE Travel (South Asia) is the first travel management company in India to take this issue seriously by developing a carbon offset program for travelers”
Elaborates, Ritika Modi, Regional President, UNIGLOBE Travel (South Asia), “Today, more and more businesses, from large corporations to small and mid-sized enterprises are looking at ways to reduce the impact of the emissions associated with their travel and they are managing this as a strategic business issue. Research indicates that consumer spending on ethical and environmentally friendly products and services is growing, demonstrating a desire to reduce their personal carbon impact.”
Modi continues, “Clients who want to take a more proactive approach to address the environmental impact of their travel can now use this service to reduce their emissions. Once they have reduced flight emissions they will be able to communicate that their company’s carbon footprint has been reduced through the UNIGLOBE Carbon Offset program. This reduction will also be substantiated by official certification issued by The CarbonNeutral Company.”
The UNIGLOBE Carbon Offset program electronically calculates the carbon emissions of each trip using a carbon calculator that utilizes best practice CO2 emissions data. Each tonne of CO2 that is produced is counter-balanced with a tonne saved by validated emission reduction projects in India that include renewable energy projects, such as solar, wind, hydro, biomass and re-use of waste products.
Says, Rani Virdee, Managing Director Asia Pacific, The CarbonNeutral Company, “we are proud to work with UNIGLOBE to develop a Carbon Offset Program which enables travelers to offset their flight carbon emissions. Customers will offset their emissions through a customized Carbon Offset Portfolio comprising of projects solely located in India. Examples of these projects are an energy efficiency project based at a steel plant near Kotmar, in the state of Chhattisgarh. This project captures waste heat which is used to produce electricity. As well as a renewable energy, wind power project in the Tirunelveli district of Tamil Nadu, this generates clean energy from 17 new wind turbines.”
Ms Virdee continues, “all of our projects meet industry recognized standards, such as the Voluntary Carbon Standard (VCS), and are independently verified by third parties. We have developed a market-leading quality assurance program and internal standards to ensure that businesses such as UNIGLOBE and its customers are 100% confident that the offsets they purchase are real, additional and permanent.”
Speaking at the launch, Ashok Khosla, Chairman - Development Alternatives, President - IUCN and Club of Rome, cited “the scientific evidence is overwhelming and Climate change presents serious global risks. The advance of climate change will impact the personal lives and business interests of millions across the globe, travelers included. The path to going green is a long one but encouraging developments such as the UNIGLOBE Carbon Offset Program suggest that the industry has started moving in the right direction”
Ankur Bhatia, Executive Director, Bird Group says, “Carbon emission and global warming remain critical issues with the Travel industry . An estimated five billion A4 sheets are needed to print paper tickets per annum. Twice that number are required for back-office paper work. E-ticketing would save so much of paper. Amadeus not only introduced e-ticketing in India almost six years ago, but also trained almost 6,000 CISF personnel stationed at airports across the country to identify e-tickets.
Our technology solutions besides adding convenience and transparency to the consumer, have also contributed towards saving the environment. We are therefore, pleased with the introduction of this program from Uniglobe and will partner with them in India to evangelize and spread awareness on this important issue. Amadeus has a large outreach to the travel community with a base of over 20,000 agents and we will support the awareness building measures amongst end consumers through our partners.” added Bhatia.
About UNIGLOBE Travel South Asia
UNIGLOBE Travel is the world’s largest single brand travel franchise organization with more than 750 locations in more than 40 countries generating $3.0 billion in gross annual sales across the Americas, Europe, Asia, Africa and the Middle East. Operating under a well-recognized brand name, UNIGLOBE travel agencies specialize in providing highly personalized travel management services to small to mid-sized corporate clients and vacation planning to leisure travelers.
About The CarbonNeutral Company
The CarbonNeutral Company (www.carbonneutral.com) is a world leading carbon offset and carbon management business, working with over 300 major businesses and thousands of small and medium sized companies. Over the last ten years, they have purchased carbon credits from over 200 projects across six continents.
CarbonNeutral® is the registered trademark of The CarbonNeutral Company and is the leading brand mark and quality standard for action on climate change. Permission to display the CarbonNeutral mark is only given to clients when CO2 emissions have been measured and reduced to net zero through a programme implemented in accordance with The CarbonNeutral Protocol. This Protocol assures quality of offset projects, carbon footprint assessments and communication and is regularly reviewed by an Independent Advisory Group. The ‘audit trail’ includes an annual independent verification of CarbonNeutral programs – from contracts with carbon offset partners through to contracts with clients and everything in between.
The CarbonNeutral Company has two regional operating headquarters in New York and London, as well as offices in Singapore and San Francisco, and a network of affiliates in Japan, Canada, France and UAE.
The CarbonNeutral Company is a founding member of The International Carbon Reduction and Offset Alliance (ICROA), which provides leadership and a unified voice advocating for rigorous industry standards
www.icroa.org
About Bird Group
The Bird Group was founded in 1971 with the incorporation of Bird Travels. Today, with over 40 years of experience and more than 40 offices supported by over 3500 well trained staff and an impressive clientele of over 500 top corporates, Bird Group can claim to be one of the largest and most diversified entities within the industry in the Indian subcontinent. With businesses as diverse as pioneering back-office processing to being the representative for many of the world’s leading airlines; from managing the backbone of the technological framework for airline IT and distribution to managing crucial relationships of international service providers, Bird Group has ensured that a comprehensive portfolio of service offering has been created to add value to an extensive client base and add new potential customers. And in recent months, Bird Group has taken bold steps to increasing the value offering while broadening business horizons with new ventures. Today Bird Group’s core business includes Travel Technology, Comprehensive Airline Representation & Management, Hospitality, Passenger Aviation Services & Ground Handling, Cargo Management, Education & Training, Business Consultancy & Luxury Retail. Together, the various companies within these verticals generate direct revenue in excess of USD 100 Million.
For more information, visit the Bird Group website www.bird.in
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