Direct/Travel Buyer Company: Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited (ANZ)

Allied/ Travel Supplier Company: Marriott International, Inc.

"The applications submitted for this second year of the NBTA CSR Awards program point to an increased focus on sustainability and social responsibility within corporate travel," said NBTA CSR Committee Chair, Robert C. Wade, CCTE. "We are proud to honor ANZ and Marriott International for their CSR efforts. Both companies were chosen based on a rigorous application and selection process designed to highlight the best-in-breed travel CSR initiatives."

ANZ's Travel CSR Program

The ANZ travel CSR initiatives fit within a company-wide strategy to ensure responsible travel practices across its business. That approach includes consideration of carbon emissions associated with travel, increased use of technology to minimize unnecessary travel, and duty of care for employees.

The company has been publicly reporting carbon emissions associated with air travel for more than five years. This year ANZ commenced a program of work to understand and monitor the carbon impacts of additional areas of corporate travel including carbon emissions associated with hotel accommodation, car hire and taxi travel. It made a commitment to offset the emissions associated with travel in line with the Australian Government's National Carbon Offsets Standard and to procure offsets to retroactively cover emissions from October 2009.

Duty of care is a significant area of focus for the ANZ travel program. The travel policy mandates the use of approved booking channels to ensure traveler whereabouts are known at all times, and the company actively manages travel to high-risk destinations.

Marriott's CSR Program

Marriott International's environmental strategy is set by an executive-level Green Council and designed in partnership with Conservation International. Marriott has a goal of reducing emissions up to 25 percent by 2017 and reports annually to the Carbon Disclosure Project.

Marriott initiatives include:

Managing Company Travel: Marriott has robust Traveler Safety and Traveler Health duty of care programs supporting employees traveling on company business. Safety initiatives include: tools and resources for trip planning, the Traveler Safety program featuring destination security reports and a 24/7 Crisis Hotline and a traveler tracking system enabling the company to locate employees should an emergency or crisis arise. The Travel Health program provides records of travel medicine immunizations, medical travel kits, pre-trip information and a post-trip consultation.

Employee and Guest Engagement: Marriott is educating and inspiring employees and guests to support the environment through their everyday actions at home, while at work and on travel. The "Spirit to Preserve the Rainforest" meetings promotion allows customers booking group meetings to address climate change and improve the environment. Through this innovative program at participating hotels, Marriott donates five percent of the total cost of a group's guest rooms to help preserve the Amazon rainforest.

Water, Waste and Energy Reduction: Having reduced water consumption per available room by 8.2 percent and energy per available room by 11 percent over two years, Marriott's goal is to further reduce fuel and water consumption by 25 percent per available room by 2017. In 2009, Marriott's landfill waste in the U.S. was reduced 17 percent since 2007 as a result of the company's focus on recycling.

Supply Chain: Marriott is engaging its top 40 vendors to supply price-neutral greener products across 12 categories. Products rolled out in the past two years include key cards and ink pens made from recycled material, housekeeping uniforms, Low VOC paint, biodegradable laundry bags, low-energy light bulbs, low environmental impact carpet, water-efficient shower heads and toilets.

The NBTA CSR Awards are endorsed by Project ICARUS, a program of CSR awards, accreditation and tools administered by the UK and Ireland Institute of Travel & Meetings (ITM). Please visit www.icarus.itm.org.uk for more information.

Additional details on the award winners and other business travel CSR programs are outlined in the 2010 NBTA CSR Toolkit, to be published next week during the 2010 NBTA International Convention & Exposition in Houston (www.nbtaconvention.org).