GBTA Foundation’s Project ICARUS Recognizes Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide as Sustainability Gold Medal Recipient

Alexandria, VA (June 22, 2016) —GBTA Foundation’s Project ICARUS is proud to announce Starwood Hotels & Resorts Inc. as a recipient of the prestigious Project ICARUS Sustainability Gold Medal. The Gold Medal program recognizes travel and meeting industry companies who are committed to making sustainability a core function within their business and who are leading the way by commitment and actions to provide best in class sustainability programs for their company, travellers and customers.

Starwood was one of the first U.S.-based hotel chains to receive the ICARUS Gold Medal in 2013, and is now being honored again with its second Gold Medal for demonstrating significant progress and continuous improvement in their sustainable products and services since that time.

“Starwood stood out and earned this second Gold Medal with its continued efforts to innovate and drive towards achievement of their lofty 30/20 by 2020 global targets for reduction in energy, water and carbon emissions,” said Bernard Harrop, head of sustainability for Project ICARUS. “The GBTA Foundation is proud to present Starwood with this award as they represent a great example in the drive for greater sustainability in our industry.”

For more information visit the Project ICARUS website: www.gbta.org/foundation/ICARUS/Pages/Awards.aspx or contact Bernard Harrop at bharrop@gbtafoundation.org .

About Project ICARUS
Project ICARUS, a GBTA Foundation initiative, is the most widely recognized and respected Corporate Sustainability/Corporate Social Responsibility program within the global business travel and meeting industry. This is a project led by and targeted primarily at national and international travel buyers/managers and their suppliers/intermediaries, who wish to integrate sustainability into the way they manage, run and supply travel and meetings programs. www.gbta.org/foundation/ICARUS.

CONTACT: Colleen Lerro Gallagher, +1 703-236-1133, cgallagher@gbta.org

About the GBTA Foundation
The GBTA Foundation is the education and research foundation of the Global Business Travel Association (GBTA), the world’s premier business travel and meetings trade organization headquartered in the Washington, D.C. area with operations on six continents. Collectively, GBTA’s 9,000-plus members manage more than $345 billion of global business travel and meetings expenditures annually. GBTA provides its growing network of more than 28,000 travel professionals and 125,000 active contacts with world-class education, events, research, advocacy and media. The Foundation was established in 1997 to support GBTA’s members and the industry as a whole. As the leading education and research foundation in the business travel industry, the GBTA Foundation seeks to fund initiatives to advance the business travel profession. The GBTA Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. For more information, see gbta.org and gbta.org/foundation.