Hogg Robinson and PricewaterhouseCoopers earn 2008/09 Project ICARUS Award

Hogg Robinson Group and PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP have received the coveted 2008/09 Project ICARUS Award for Best Corporate Team from the Institute of Travel Management - recognising their partnership approach to mitigating the environmental impact of PwC's corporate travel activities.

In a statement regarding the award decision, the judging panel (comprising senior industry executives, academics and consultants) commented: "Project ICARUS perhaps would not have developed as it has without the leadership of PwC's travel team leader and outgoing ITM Chairman Mark Avery. PwC's desire to grow its business while making actual (not per head) reductions in CO2 emissions forced it to make some significant changes."

The panel continued: "A focus on changing the travel behaviour of the 20% of staff that creates 80% of its travel demand has lead to significant adoption of videoconferencing, switches to lower emission travel modes and lobbying of travel suppliers to green their businesses. HRG (PwC's corporate travel provider) has been instrumental in helping it achieve these changes and the strength of the partnership is such that HRG employees talk on behalf of PwC on this topic at many conferences and events."

David Radcliffe, Chief Executive of HRG, said, "I am delighted that the partnership approach taken by HRG and PwC has been recognised with this prestigious award and offer my sincere congratulations to all those involved. I would particularly like to commend Mark Avery for his visionary approach and commitment to driving this initiative, not only internally but also industry-wide.

"HRG is committed to helping clients achieve their corporate environmental objectives and reduce (where practicable) their own carbon footprints as they relate to business travel, offering a number of environmentally-focused solutions and services." 

HRG have also developed their own in-house CO2 Calculator allowing clients to assess - in one free, simple and easy to use tool - the environmental impact of their travel choices and provides an indicative value of the cost of 'offsetting' those emissions by making a charitable donation. HRG also provides comprehensive emissions reporting (down to individual traveller level as required) and advice (including alternative options to travel) to help clients assess and limit their environmental impact.

"We are also determined to help our employees understand and consider the impact of their actions on the people, communities and wider environment around them. As a result we have introduced a number of internal initiatives which, in addition to the development of a CSR policy, include achieving multi-country ISO 14001 status," Radcliffe added.

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