Our approach to sustainability

When Thomas Cook created his first package holiday, he was inspired by his sense of social responsibility. He believed that travel could improve people’s lives and make their dreams come true; that holidays could make a ‘world of difference’ to all those involved.

This is what still inspires us today – we believe tourism is a great power for good and we want to continue to make a difference to all those whose lives we touch.

In our sustainability policy, we define sustainability as ‘operating responsibly to minimise negative and enhance positive environmental, social and economic impact: ensuring the long term sustainability of our business and of the resources on which we depend’.

Sustainability is recognised as an integral part of the Thomas Cook Group and sustainability strategy is developed and progress monitored at the most senior level. The Board’s Health, Safety & Environmental (“HSE”) Committee meets regularly to assess and review the management of health, safety and environmental risks and opportunities and to review progress made against the implementation of HSE strategy and policy. During the year, the HSE Committee: approved the new group-wide strategy for health and safety; reviewed how the Group is organised to ensure it meets its obligations in relation to health and safety and environmental legislation; and approved a new corporate responsibility strategy.

The sustainability team has the responsibility for the development and implementation of the Group’s corporate responsibility strategy, reporting on performance, sharing best practice around the Group and working to identify targets for improvement. The team’s main focus remains ensuring the long-term success of the business through the integration of principles of sustainability into the heart of the business.

Key stakeholders

Our stakeholders include customers, employees, investors, suppliers, local communities, industry partners, governments and non-governmental organisations, in our source countries and the destinations where we operate.

We work with them to identify the issues that can move our business forward. In particular, we need the support of customers, employees and suppliers; without them we cannot achieve real sustainability, so we attach particular importance to raising their awareness of sustainability issues and work with them to enhance policies, standards and practices.

Customers

The trust of our customers is paramount to our business and, in order to succeed, we believe it is essential to build the best possible relationship with them. Continuous improvement is our main aim in all aspects of our customer facing business and we actively seek feedback through customer questionnaires and independent research in order to analyse and develop our service delivery.

Protecting the health and safety of our customers remains our primary concern. During 2009, we approved a Group health & safety strategy and established a working party to assist with the development of a set of Thomas Cook Group preferred practices. The preferred practices and our wider Group strategy aim to reflect best practice existing within the organisation, as well as recognise that the destinations we feature are subject to varying local legislation and our own source markets have differing legislative requirements.

Employees

We believe that our employees are the ultimate drivers of our business success. We want people to be proud to work for us; good recruitment, development and training are at the heart of this and we seek to continually motivate all those who are part of the team. Read more about our people.

Environment / climate change

We recognise that the long-term success of our business is dependent on the environment and natural resources and we are committed to doing as much as we can to protect them. We continue to strive to reduce the negative impacts resulting from our operations and to work with our suppliers to encourage them to do the same.

We accept the contribution that aviation makes to climate change and therefore continue to focus on the reduction of aircraft emissions, as well as on natural resource use and waste management. Our work on monitoring and reporting of our impacts this year has included taking part in the 2009 Carbon Disclosure Project, where we were featured in the Carbon Disclosure Leadership Index for the quality of our reporting.

We continue to gather emissions and energy consumption data from around the Group and this will be included in our full 2009 Sustainability Report.

Supply chain management

Our principal suppliers are accommodation providers in the destinations where we operate. In order to minimise the negative impacts of overseas holidays, we must work with them and support them to make changes in their businesses and ensure increasingly high health, safety and environmental standards.

We continue to use the Travelife Sustainability System as our supply chain management tool of choice in the UK – rewarding those who have made progress in sustainability performance. Since we began in 2007, we have audited over 370 hotels and we now have 51 members of staff trained as Travelife auditors. More than 75 awards are now featured within our brochures, promoting this work to our customers. Thomas Cook Northern Europe, Thomas Cook Belgium and Thomas Cook Netherlands also now use the Travelife scheme, working towards a consistent set of standards across the Group.

Communities and charitable activities

We believe we should play an active part in the communities where our people live and work and where our customers travel. In destinations, tourism can bring great economic and social benefit and we want to ensure that local communities benefit as much as possible from the visits of our customers.

During 2009, we have continued to support the Travel Foundation, a UK charity, as a key partner, raising money through customer donations and working closely with them on projects to improve the lives of people in our destinations.

Thomas Cook has a tradition of encouraging charitable giving and, during 2009, we established the independent Thomas Cook Children’s Charity as our primary vehicle for donations raised by customers and employees. This has enabled a more co-ordinated policy for the Group and is focusing charitable support on causes related to children and education. Read more about our key achievements.

The Group was also involved in a number of other charitable activities during the year. These included supporting Flight of Dreams, where sick and disadvantaged children are taken on a flight, and donating £20,000 worth of holidays to the charity Sail 4 Cancer. The Group has also given ‘in kind’ donations to the Spinal Injuries Association and the British Heart Foundation.

More information

The full Thomas Cook Group Sustainability Report is published annually and sets out our policies, standards, activities, priorities and performance; to conserve resources this is available online only. We welcome your feedback on all aspects of sustainability and you can find full contact details on the website.

Full Sustainability Report at: http://sustainability2009.thomascookgroup.com

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