PROJECT ICARUS BRANCHES OUT
ICARUS BRANCHES OUT
Association's CSR project to allow global subscribers
The Institute of Travel & Meetings (ITM) has announced that its lauded CSR programme, Project ICARUS , has moved to a stand-alone website to allow non-member subscribers for the first time. The project includes a programme of accreditation to recognize buyers who have engaged in environmental activity, a set of supplier awards each year and both "environmental" and a "duty of care" toolkits. The toolkits present best practice and guidance for buyers to manage travel programmes more effectively and are updated annually. The overall project, which was originally supported by government funding through a project called Omega, is widely seen as the most credible global attempt to lead the debate on CSR and has resulted in ITM being requested to present to government on the issue of sustainability in travel.
The stand-alone website means that any stakeholders involved in CSR can pay for access to the content without having to be an ITM member. This has allowed a unique business partnership to foster in the form of a deal between ITM and the Danish Business Travel Association (DBTA), whereby all DBTA members will get access to the content. ITM believes that this will be the first of many such deals which will allow the association to concentrate resources on the development of the ICARUS site to create broader content.
ITM Chief Executive, Paul Tilstone said "we are delighted that ICARUS has become so well recognised globally as a leading light in this area, with thousands of hits from over 30 countries in just 12 months. The creation of a stand-alone site, access to non-members and the deal with DBTA illustrates that we are taking the content and premise of ICARUS to a much broader audience."
Ole Bo Larsen, Vice Chairman of DBTA, said " we recognised ITM's work here as best in class and decided that we would like to give access to the project to our members and play a role in the future of ICARUS."
