The world is a wonderful place -
we want to keep it that way
As one of the world's largest leisure travel companies, we have a great opportunity to drive forward sustainable development in our industry. Tourism is a Top 5 export in 80% of developing countries, and the most important export in a third of developing countries. By working at TUI Travel PLC, you’ll be contributing to an industry that’s helping to pull people out of poverty all over the world.
Getting involved
Our people are key to making sure that TUI Travel PLC is the most responsible organisation it can be. This can mean something as simple as switching off the lights when they aren’t being used to coming up with fresh ideas for new, greener products.
In the UK, there are plenty of opportunities for you to get involved, such as Project Discovery. This innovative initiative encourages volunteers to spend a few weeks using their skills to help locals make the most of the opportunities that tourism presents.
Our Shops
In our First Choice and Thomson retail shops, brochures are printed on paper that comes from sustainably managed forests. This means that the trees are harvested carefully to avoid damaging the surrounding plants and animals.
We’ve also cut the number of pages in our brochures – even introducing brochure-less travel ‘pods’ in some shops. These allow customers to browse destinations on the web in-store and only print the pages that they want.
Last year wWe have now raised £1 2 million for the World Care Fund, our customer donation scheme. The money goes to The Travel Foundation, a charity that supports local communities in our holiday destinations the places we love to visit, and ClimateCare, one of the UK’s leading carbon offset providers.
Our Offices
Sustainable development starts at home. Just because we focus heavily on helping people and the environment overseas, that doesn’t mean we’re not doing our bit in the UK too. We’ve been working on our direct environmental impacts in the office for several years.
Our Airlines
Aviation accounts for 2-3% of global greenhouse gas emissions, but this contribution is rising.
Our number one priority is to make our fleet as fuel-efficient as possible. Here are just a few of the ways we’re doing that:
- Reducing aircraft cruise speed by a fraction to reduce fuel burn
- Increasing direct routing to reduce fuel burn
- Improving our use of ‘continuous descent approach’ techniques into airports to save fuel, emissions and reduce noise pollution
- Reducing the weight of the aircraft by carrying the correct amount of fuel, fewer catering accessories and less non-essential engineering equipment
- Whenever practical, using one engine instead of two to taxi around the airport on arrival
All of this means that we have reduced our CO2 emissions by 34,000 tonnes in a year – the equivalent of taking nearly 10,000 family-sized cars off the road for 12 months. That’s just one of the reasons that First Choice Airways won the British Travel Award for Most Environmentally Responsible Airline in 2006, 2007, and 2008.
The launch of the new cleaner and quieter 787 Dreamliners (starting in 2010) will also help us reach new targets to reduce noise and air pollution.