New White Paper Details Impact Recent EU Accounting Directive to Have on Travel Buyers

EU Directive Makes Reporting of Non-Financial Data Mandatory for 6,000+ EU Companies

Frankfurt, Germany (11 November 2015) – In 2014, the European Council adopted Directive 2014/95/EU establishing mandatory environmental, social and governance reporting requirements for companies of significant public relevance with more than 500 employees. The EU member states are currently transposing the Directive into national law and mandatory reporting will be enforced beginning in 2017. The GBTA Foundation’s Project ICARUS partnered with atmosfair to create a white paper detailing its implications for business travel carbon emissions reporting.

The white paper, EU Non-Financial Reporting Directive: Implications for Business Travel Reporting, analyses current reporting practices and gives an indication of how prepared the business travel industry is for this new regulation. It also offers solutions on how travel buyers can prepare for the new reporting requirements. The paper will be presented at an education session today during GBTA Conference 2015 Frankfurt in partnership with VDR.

“With nearly 6,000 companies impacted, Project ICARUS wanted to create a resource to help travel buyers navigate the implications this new directive presents,” said Bernard Harrop, head of sustainability for Project ICARUS. “The directive should not be seen as a burden on companies, but rather an opportunity to increase European companies’ long-term competitiveness and Europe’s long-term sustainable growth practices.”

The whitepaper, EU Non-Financial Reporting Directive: Implications for Business Travel Reporting, is available exclusively to GBTA members by clicking here and non-members may purchase the report through the GBTA Foundation by emailing pyachnes@gbtafoundation.org.

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

About atmosfair
atmosfair is a non-profit climate protection organisation with a focus on travel. With the VDR-standard atmosfair established an accurate and praticable methodology to calculate CO2-emissions from business travel and MICE. atmosfair‘s approach to sustainable business travel management aims at achieving CO2, cost and time savings. To offset carbon emissions, atmosfair develops its own renrewable energy and energy efficiency projects in developing countries – certified by the CDM Gold Standard, the strictest standard available for climate protection projects. atmosfair’s outstanding quality has been confirmed by numerous international comparative studies.

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.

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 7,000-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 www.gbta.org and www.gbta.org/foundation.

About the Global Business Travel Association
The Global Business Travel Association (GBTA) is the world’s premier business travel and meetings trade organization headquartered in the Washington, D.C. area with operations on six continents. GBTA’s 9,000-plus members manage more than $345 billion of global business travel and meetings expenditures annually. GBTA and the GBTA Foundation deliver world-class education, events, research, advocacy and media to a growing global network of more than 28,000 travel professionals and 125,000 active contacts. To learn how business travel drives lasting business growth, gbta.org