After publicly pledging in 2012 to make Hong Kong International Airport (HKIA) the world’s greenest airport, AAHK has developed a unique collaborative and airport-wide approach to achieving its aims.
Airport Authority Hong Kong (AAHK) has won one of the highest accolades the tourism industry has to offer, the World Travel & Tourism Council’s (WTTC) Tourism for Tomorrow Environment Award.
The WTTC Tourism for Tomorrow Awards showcase business practices of the highest standards within Travel & Tourism. The 2018 Awards winners are industry leaders who promote inclusive growth, and work toward a greener future as a result of their proactive contributions to sustainable development and the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Following a rigorous 5-stage judging process, which includes an onsite evaluation, winners of the 2018 Tourism for Tomorrow Awards were announced at a special ceremony during the 18th WTTC Global Summit in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
WTTC’s Tourism for Tomorrow Environment Award celebrates the force for good that tourism can be on the environment, recognising an organisation who has achieved environmental best practice through biodiversity conservation, protection of natural habitats, addressing climate change, and green operations.
After publicly pledging in 2012 to make Hong Kong International Airport (HKIA) the world’s greenest airport, AAHK has developed a unique collaborative and airport-wide approach to achieving its aims. AAHK created a range of programmes to address issues such as carbon reduction and food waste in collaboration with its many third-party suppliers and business partners. By the end of 2015, HKIA had achieved a 25.6% reduction in the overall carbon intensity of its operations, as compared with the 2008 level, and also saved enough food from going to waste to provide 100,000 meals for the underprivileged since 2013.
Fiona Jeffery, OBE, Chair, WTTC Tourism for Tomorrow Awards, stated: “Airport Authority Hong Kong set about being the greenest airport in the world. To do this they needed to collaborate with many of their partnering businesses and they worked steadily at breaking down barriers of objection to make it easy for all to engage and comply. It’s a testament to their vision and patient collaboration that Airport Authority Hong Kong have achieved so much as an operation and it is a credit to all those businesses involved as well as the airport itself.”
Mike Kilburn, Assistant General Manager, Sustainability, AAHK, commented: “We are honoured to receive the Tourism for Tomorrow 2018 Environment Award, especially as it reflects the collaborative efforts of more than 150 business partners and tenants of the airport community at the HKIA, who work together with AAHK to accelerate the rate of reduction of our carbon and waste footprints in pursuit of our pledge to make HKIA the world’s greenest airports. We also appreciate T4T providing a platform for the sharing of best practice by all the finalists. We hope that the HKIA and our “airport-wide” approach – of actively facilitating the inclusion of our business partners in our footprint reduction programmes – could act as a role model for others in the travel and tourism sector, and thereby further accelerate the rate of reduction of our sector’s environmental footprint.”
Awards Lead Judge, Graham Miller, Executive Dean, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at the University of Surrey, said: “The Tourism for Tomorrow judging process is the designed to ensure that WTTC can have the utmost confidence in the outstanding contribution made by the winning organisations. The judging process involves five separate stages that uses experts from across the world to review the organisation and to speak to a range of stakeholders including local residents, employees, customers, suppliers, government and academics. No other award programme sends evaluators to assess the organisations in situ, and as a result, the winning organisations deserve to be recognised as true leaders in sustainable tourism”.
Jeff Rutledge, CEO, AIG Travel: “Our Tourism for Tomorrow winners prove that sustainable growth is possible, while also protecting local communities and cultural heritage, and reducing the impact on our environment. Amazing things can be achieved through sustainable tourism, and our hope is that others will be inspired enough to act after learning more about this year’s winners.”
Angelos is the news editor for TravelDailyNews Media Network (traveldailynews.gr, traveldailynews.com and traveldailynews.asia). His role includes to monitor the hundrends of news sources of TravelDailyNews Media Network and skim the most important according to our strategy. He currently studies Communication, Media & Culture in Panteion University of Political & Social Studies of Athens.
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