Dear Friends,
Sustainable Growth is a priority of WTTC Members and one of three areas of focus here at WTTC. WTTC has been committed to recognising best practice and rewarding sustainability achievements in Travel & Tourism for 15 years through its Tourism for Tomorrow Awards programme. Over this period we have showcased over 225 leading examples of sustainable tourism best practice.
Sustainability has now gained further significance in our sector and our aim is for WTTC to shift its focus from celebrating and rewarding best practice to driving action towards a more sustainable sector.
I am delighted to share with you an announcement made on Tuesday 24 September at our first Travel & Tourism Climate & Environment Action Forum, hosted jointly with UNFCCC in New York as part of Climate Week.
We set the ambition for Travel & Tourism to be climate neutral by 2050, with an action plan for how WTTC will support its Members and the wider industry towards this ambition. As part of this action plan we have launched a new initiative - WTTC Sustainable Travel & Tourism Partners.
This new initiative aims to create mass engagement around sustainability within our sector and bring companies under the same sustainability umbrella while raising awareness of those practices and record progress with consumers and governments. We will be encouraging Travel & Tourism companies around the world to join the progamme by sharing the ambition to be climate neutral by 2050, become certified through an existing certification body, and then share their best practice, which WTTC will recognise and reward.
If you would like to watch the New York event, it is available here on YouTube. We had interventions from Patricia Espinosa, Executive Director, UNFCCC; Jeffrey Sachs, Director for the Centre for Sustainable Development, Columbia University; and Paul Polman, former CEO of Unilever, among many other climate experts and industry leaders.
It only remains for me to thank all of you involved in the Tourism for Tomorrow Awards over so many years as applicants, finalists, supporters, sponsors and judges. Particularly Fiona Jeffery OBE, the Awards Chair, and Graham Miller, Lead Judge who have been instrumental in the success of the Awards programme and WTTC Vice Chair Jeff Rutledge, CEO of AIG Travel, for his support as headline sponsor in recent years.
I have been honoured to have been part of the Tourism for Tomorrow Awards activities since WTTC took them over in 2004, under the guidance of our founding Chair, Costas Christ, and it has been an enormous honour and pleasure to have worked with so many of you, with the support here in London over the years of Suzann, Anja, Agata and Kmar.
This is a new and exciting sustainability journey for WTTC and I invite you all to join us on it. If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact me on olivia.rugglesbrise@wttc.org or Rochelle Turner on rochelle.turner@wttc.org
Best regards,
Olivia Ruggles-Brise
SVP, Corporate Strategy
World Travel & Tourism Council
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