Winners announced for Business Travel Sustainability Awards Europe 2024

The winners of the BTN Group’s second annual Business Travel Sustainability Awards Europe were announced on Tuesday, with 12 companies, teams and individuals among the winners.

Unveiled at the close of the fourth annual Business Travel Sustainability Summit Europe in London on 14 May, the winners were subject to a two-stage entry process and were selected by an independent panel of 20 judges who sought to identify the suppliers and corporates best advancing sustainability within their own operations and for the benefit of their clients.

The winners are as follows:

Achievement in Sustainability – Accommodation Provider: Lamington Group (Room2 hometel)
What the judges said: The winner demonstrated dedication to providing low emissions accommodation services. Just a few standout examples include listing carbon emissions on food menus to providing sustainability education to all staff so they can recommend low carbon options to guests. The judges were impressed by their customer case study and their detailed reporting and contribution to lowering the emissions connected to accommodation stays for this corporate programme.

Achievement in Sustainability – Airline: Air France-KLM Group
What the judges said: The winner introduced or made improvements to a variety of offerings to their customers – including adjusting reporting for customers to distinguish between voluntary and mandated SAF, extending their SAF B2B programme to the SME market and introducing low carbon transport alternatives for shorter distances. The judges were particularly impressed by their development of a solution based on a condition by one customer that turned into an initiative available to all corporate customers.

Highly Commended: Virgin Atlantic
The judges wanted to commend Virgin Atlantic for being a pioneer with Flight 100 – the first flight fuelled with 100 per cent SAF.

Achievement in Sustainability – Ground Transportation Provider – Car Rental: Enterprise Mobility
What the judges said: The winner’s commitment to this issue is woven throughout all aspects of their organisation. In addition to the obvious growth in EVs and branch charging stations, they are working to ensure many of their locations are powered by renewable energy and installing water recycling systems. They are collaborating with other organisations to ensure they meet demand at key airports and markets.

Achievement in Sustainability – Ground Transportation Provider – Driver Hire: Addison Lee Ltd
What the judges said: The winner is applauded for making continuing investments in and diversifying their fleet and had a strong and unique customer case study which highlighted a Fashion Week partnership where the winner adjusted its usual operations and vehicle type to match the sustainability efforts of the customer while still providing the style and class associated with a high profile event. This is the second consecutive year that Addison Lee has won this award.

Highly Commended: Uber for Business
The judges wanted to commend Uber for Business for providing a robust sustainability insights dashboard and having a strong strategy to comply with jurisdictional requirements related to emissions.

Achievement in Sustainability – Rail Operator: Eurostar International Ltd
What the judges said: The winning rail operator has demonstrated clear goals and results both for their business and the featured customer. In addition to a focus on renewable energy sources, a few other standout examples include the implementation of advanced facial recognition technology and the use of recycled and locally sourced products. This is the second consecutive year that Eurostar has won this award.

Achievement in Sustainability – Corporate Booking Platform: CTM Europe (Lightning)
What the judges said: The winner of this category has an impressive customer case study supported by impressive, documented results. They have created a bespoke sustainability functionality that drives meaningful change within travel programmes and provides robust data for needed reporting and helps travel programmes meet their stated goals. This is the second consecutive year that CTM has won this award.

Achievement in Sustainability – TMC: BCD Travel
What the judges said: The judges applauded BCD Travel for their solid focus on internal reductions, as well as offering a robust suite of offerings to help support their customers with their own reduction efforts. They routinely undergo review and evaluation by outside organisations and receive high ratings and rankings and they prioritise sustainability beyond just climate and carbon reduction, including DEI efforts and traveller wellbeing.

Achievement in Advancing Sustainability Data & Reporting: Advito
What the judges said: The judges commended Advito for their holistic approach to data collection, analysis and reporting that focuses not just on emissions reduction, but also traveller wellbeing. They are adept at using the data to build customised strategies for their customers.

Highly Commended: Thrust Carbon
Thrust Carbon is commended for their ability to adapt to their client’s needs and customising their approach which has developed into a model that can be used for other customers.

Achievement in Sustainability – Meetings & Events: Edinburgh International Conference Centre
What the judges said: The judges were impressed by the winner’s tangible results in reducing their own emissions as well as supporting that of their customers. They also applauded the collaboration with other industry partners and their willingness to pay it forward and share knowledge and feedback to help other venues and hotels with their sustainability efforts.

Achievement in Sustainability Innovation: SQUAKE
What the judges said: The judges praised SQUAKE for solving a big industry challenge, one that legacy players haven’t been able to easily offer a solution for. The judges were impressed by the company’s flexibility to cater to different methodologies and their willingness to partner with TMCs and airlines is an example of true collaboration.

Sustainability Champion: Robin Spierings, SkyTeam
What the judges said: Robin Spierings is not only leading a large and important project where she has needed to get buy in from executives that has a significant impact in the industry when it comes to reducing CO2 emissions and embodies sustainability in her professional life, but also has had this in her DNA from a young age and her personal story is as powerful as her professional story.

Achievement in Sustainability – Managed Travel Programme: Arcadis
This year, the BTN Group changed the selection process for this award. Our judging panel reviewed the first round of submissions which gave us three finalists: Arcadis, AstraZeneca and Salesforce. For the second stage of the process, the BTN editorial team engaged in extensive interviews with the finalists and some of their key partners to determine the winner.

What the judges said: The judges, and the BTN editorial team, were particularly impressed with Arcadis’ endeavours to consolidate emissions data in order to create quarterly personalised carbon footprint reports for all its travellers, globally. This strategic reporting and communications effort was supported by a network of change champions across the business that also helped to drive travel policy change and resulted in a 30 per cent decline in overall business travel emissions in 2023.

Highly Commended: AstraZeneca
AstraZeneca’s impressive Every Mile Matters educational campaign among its travellers was praised for its wide reach and its apparent success alongside several new sustainability developments, with the company comfortably achieving its carbon emission reduction goals for 2023.

A full list of the 38 finalists, unveiled in February, can be viewed here.

“My thanks go out to all the organisations who submitted an entry. It’s encouraging to see the continued efforts being made across the industry to reduce CO2 emissions, improve data and reporting capabilities and change traveller behaviour. I also need to thank the judges for their thoughtful and thorough review of all the entries received,” said Jen Bankard, BTN Group senior director of content solutions and conferences.

The judging panel was convened by the BTN Group and included: Simon Andrews, travel environment & sustainability manager, Shell; Geert Behets, sustainable procurement & risk lead, UCB; Jon Bolger, head of travel & CBS sustainability, Deloitte; Amanda Calder, category manager, HSBC; Andy Cassidy, corporate travel manager, AMC Networks; Cristina Chimenti, head of travel, Sky; Gehan Colliander, global head of travel, BCG; Nadia Crowe, environmental sustainability senior analyst, AVEVA; Maarten Dansen, program manager operations – corporate sustainability, PwC; John Harvey, managing partner, Globalyse; Sally Higgs, travel and events sustainability manager, Festive Road; Angela Lille, advisor & co-founder, BT4Europe; Willem Melis, carbon advisor, Climate Neutral Group; Yvonne Moya, global procurement director – strategy, planning and CSR, Randstad; Ben Park, executive director, travel and sustainability, Parexel; Jenny Sabineu, senior manager, travel and sustainability, Salesforce; Dominic Short, owner, CDABS; Gert van Spijk, PUM expert, PUM; Claire Whitely, head of environment, Sustainable Hospitality Alliance.