Successful sustainability management requires a fundamental understanding of the key interaction between ecological and social systems. This forms the basis for TUI’s measures for the continual improvement of its environmental and sustainability performance at its locations and destinations. In order to balance the internal and external perspectives, a stakeholder survey was carried out in 2009. It dealt with the sustainability aspects of relevance for TUI and TUI’s perceived commitment to these aspects. The outcome of this survey served to identify further potential for sustainable action. The results are presented in TUI AG current Sustainability Report.
Sustainability Report: TUI AG at www.tui-sustainability.com
In cooperation with TUI AG, TUI Travel worked through nine Group-wide project teams to press further ahead with establishing goals and implementing measures on sustainability and the environment in business operations. The project teams were allocated to the four core working areas of Climate Change, Destinations/Supply Chain Management, Our People and Our Customers. The TUI Travel Sustainable Development Report describes all these activities in greater detail.
Sustainability Report TUI Travel at http://sd2008.tuitravelplc.com
For the fourth time in succession, TUI AG was the world’s only tourism company in the Travel & Tourism sub-sector listed in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI) World. TUI was also represented in the sustainability indices FTSE4Good, DAXglobal Sarasin Sustainability Germany, ASPI Eurozone, Ethibel Pioneer Index and ECPI Ethical Index €uro. oekom research AG continued to award TUI the investment status rating ‘prime’ in 2009.
Employees
In today’s business world, with its many social and economic changes, a company’s employees are its crucial competitive factor. Winning, retaining and promoting employees is thus the key challenge for companies, including TUI. In 2009, TUI continued to successfully implement this approach, focusing on initial and continuous training, a range of pension and health measures and activities to promote a work-life balance.
Initial and continuous training
Junior staff development and training
In order to offer young people opportunities to start their career and secure the Group’s competitiveness in the long term, the German companies offered vocational training for a total of about 500 young employees as of the balance sheet date 2009. The excellent quality of the training has been confirmed time and again by the chambers of industry and commerce in granting awards to those finishing their traineeship, some of whom have been crowned ‘best regional trainee’. Around 70% of those who finished their training in 2009 were offered an employment contract. At 5.3%, the proportion of the headcount in training declined year-on-year due to the divestment of Container Shipping. Overall, TUI offered traineeships in 13 different jobs and two sandwich courses, including commercial clerk, travel advisor and the Bachelor of Arts in Tourism.
Development of senior and executive staff
In 2009 numerous employees and managers benefited from development schemes. They received assistance and active support from various quarters including TUI Consulting & Services GmbH. The Group’s procedures for diagnosing potential focused on recruiting junior staff and developing managers. Apart from the tried-and-tested assessment centres, TUI drew increasingly on innovative management profiling. Selective training served above all to improve capacity planning and the efficacy of tourism purchasing negotiations. These training priorities were flanked by strengthening intercultural and language skills for all teams working on a cross-national basis. Now that new IT systems have been introduced in distribution, special seminar series have been designed to harmonise the networking of front, middle and back offices.
In order to secure the recruitment and development of junior staff for technical and management positions at all levels in the long term, the International Management Trainee Programme of the TUI Group has offered attractive opportunities for university graduates for many years. In 2009, the programme was given a stronger international orientation and enabled junior management staff from all over the world to gain insights into all facets of the worlds of work in tourism. The trainee assignments formed an important basis for stronger cooperation and integration within the Group. In addition, further trainee programmes tailored to the specific needs of tour operation and airlines were run at the national level.
After they began in July 2008, TUI Travel also implemented three additional leadership programmes in Costa Rica in 2009. Almost 80 managers took part in one of the five rounds of the four-day programme. Apart from consultation and hands-on assistance for a Costa Rican community, the participants gained valuable cross-divisional and intercultural experiences.
TUI exzellent!
Under the motto ‘TUI exzellent! Du bist der Experte’ (TUI excellent! You are the expert), TUI Deutschland had already launched new, self-reliant process management as early as in 2008. The project aims to optimise functions and business processes so as to improve profitability and competitiveness, but also customer and employee satisfaction. Based on workplace analyses and optimisation workshops, over 800 immediate initiatives were prepared during the reporting period with a view to securing continual process optimisation. They were implemented autonomously by employees and managers. To optimise workflows on a continuous basis, TUI Deutschland also started to create broad transparency by standardising the visualisation of actual processes. This extensive involvement encourages employees to develop efficient and sustainable workflows.
TUI Spirit
The TUI Spirit initiative, launched by TUI Travel in 2008, expresses the vision ‘We seek to create extraordinary travel experiences’. In 2009, new activities and projects were launched to spread the TUI Spirit to additional companies. TUI Spirit workshops were held at TUI Deutschland in Hanover and at TUI España. The participants worked together on ideas for implementing the TUI Spirit values. A comprehensive multi-media presentation, which was made available across the Group, documented from a management and employee perspective how the TUI Spirit had been successfully implemented in the individual source markets and sectors.
Social responsibility
Pension schemes
The companies in the TUI Group offer their employees many different ways of participating in private pension schemes, alongside the company-based pension schemes funded by the employer. Specific legal conditions and the economic position of each company are taken into account in designing the models. Private pension schemes for employees in Germany were devised so as to take advantage of fiscal and social security opportunities. Apart from pension fund contracts and direct insurance schemes, private pension insurance funds (‘Riester’ pensions) were offered to obtain co-sponsorship from public funds. In addition, deferred compensation models were offered to enable employees to choose their pension scheme according to their individual preferences.
Part-time early retirement
The German Group companies made substantial use, in their HR and succession planning, of the opportunities provided under the German Part-Time Early Retirement Act to shift gradually from employment to retirement. In almost all cases, working hours in the part-time early retirement phase were based on a block model, enabling the participant to retire early. The resulting assets for the employees working under part-time early retirement contracts are hedged against employer insolvency using a capital investment model in accordance with the provisions of the German Part-Time Early Retirement Act. Approx. €9.6m were provided for the 267 employees working under part-time early retirement contracts.
Employee shares
For many years now, TUI AG has been running a programme to issue employee shares, enabling Company employees to participate in profits. This programme is open to employees and pensioners of German companies and employees in several other European countries. In 2009, the beneficiaries were again offered the chance to subscribe to up to 250 shares at a reduced price in 2009. TUI Travel PLC also offers UK staff an opportunity to participate in the company by buying shares at reduced prices.
Health management and health and safety
The ‘fit with TUI’ programme is an example of modern health management. In accordance with the Luxembourg Declaration, signed by TUI AG, the Group offers a series of measures underlining the significance of health and well-being at the workplace. Apart from opportunities for exercise, such as in company sports, there are health seminars designed for particular target groups and programmes for the prevention of substance abuse are offered. Employees can also take part in annual campaigns such as flu vaccination, eye tests and prevention of/therapy for back problems. The highlight in 2009 was the ’Check in for a check-up’ campaign, which offered employees to take part in a range of cancer screening measures. Health activities are devised and run in consultation with the employees. This involves regular staff information campaigns and surveys, and meetings between the health coordinators, the works doctors, health and safety officials and representatives of management and staff. TUI was awarded for its exemplary health system at the Hanover site with the Corporate Health Award 2009 and ranked among the TOP 50 in Germany.
Health and safety is another key aspect of everyday working life. In cooperation with health and safety experts, activities at the Hanover site included workplace-specific hazard analyses, permanent training of first-aid and fire protection assistants and noise measurements. The employees’ health also enjoys top priority at the international level. Based on a health and safety declaration, there are various systems for distributing relevant health and safety information, disseminating best practice among the workforce and training new staff.
Company health insurance fund
BKK TUI, the company health insurance fund, is available to German employees, offering a comprehensive range of services to protect employees in the event of sickness and to promote health. Since 2009, the contributions have no longer been paid directly into the fund due to the introduction in Germany of a national ‘health fund’. Instead, they have been allocated in the form of age-, gender- and risk-adjusted lump sums per capita. Against this backdrop, budgeting became increasingly difficult and in 2009 the BKK suspended the health bonus for the employees, which had been paid for five years, in 2009. The services offered by the company health promotion scheme, on the other hand, were stepped up and will be retained in future. At the end of the period under review, membership was around 3% up year-on-year.
Work-life balance
TUI is one of the founding members of the national ‘Success factor family’ network. Group-wide programmes are aimed at enabling employees to achieve a better work-life balance. To this end, German companies offer a series of measures to employees on parental leave so that they do not lose touch with the workplace. Employees also obtain financial support for childcare or may take their children to the company crèche, the Little World of TUI, in Hanover. The Group also offers flexible models to work part-time or from home and an option to apply for unpaid leave for an extensive period of time.
Diversity Charter
A global player such as TUI lives out diversity in everyday operations. That is why TUI AG has committed to the Diversity Charter, a national German corporate initiative to promote diversity, fairness and respect in companies. The issues that TUI has chosen to highlight in project form include origin, cultural specificities and health. Specific projects include programmes to promote colleagues, but in particular also children and teenagers from migrant families. In 2009, TUI AG also supported international youth exchange programmes for its employees’ children and engaged in initiatives for people with health problems in the framework of the ‘TUI initiative’.
Employee representation within the Group
In the TUI Group, employees are represented nationally and internationally, both in individual Group companies and at Group level. In accordance with the staff participation culture fostered by the Group, employee representatives were involved in strategic decisions and the implementation of these decisions in their respective areas of responsibility in the interest of the overall workforce and supported corporate interests in doing so.
TUI European Forum
The TUI European Forum was established even before the German legislator adopted the Act on European Works Councils in 1996. Its composition results from the number of employees in the business sectors and the respective countries in the European Union, the European Economic Area and Switzerland, in which TUI directly or indirectly holds majority holdings. This year, a total of 53 representatives from 15 countries have been delegated to the TUI European Forum. Group management briefs the Select Committee of the TUI European Forum several times a year and attends meetings to discuss the current economic and HR situation within the Group. The TUI European Forum meets once a year. It makes a significant contribution to the international character of the Group and acts as a multiplier to enhance the transparency of trans-national entrepreneurial decisions.
Environmental management
TUI has been persistently committed to responsible management of the environment and natural resources. Over and above compliance with the legal environmental requirements, TUI is striving to continuously improve its environmental performance and has established this as a defined corporate goal. Ecofriendly products, services and processes are an integral component of TUI’s quality standards. In the short financial year 2009, TUI reinforced its commitment to climate protection and the preservation of biodiversity.
Climate protection and energy efficiency
In accordance with a resolution adopted by the European Union, aviation will be incorporated in the European emissions trading system as of 2012. The TUI Group’s airlines have adjusted all necessary processes in aviation to the new legal requirements. The emissions monitoring plans derived from these processes were discussed with the competent national authorities.
TUI has been aware of its responsibility to continue to implement comprehensive efficiency enhancement measures for all Group airlines. A future-oriented fleet renewal programme makes significant contributions to improving the carbon balance. TUI’s airlines pursue the goal of reducing their specific carbon emissions by 6% as against the base period 2007/08 by the end of financial year 2013/14.
Voluntary carbon offsetting
In partnership with the myclimate foundation, customers flying with TUIfly have the opportunity to voluntarily offset the greenhouse gas emissions caused by their flight. In 2009, myclimate used the donations by TUI customers to sponsor a development aid project promoting energy-saving cookers in Madagascar. TUI Deutschland customers have also been offered the opportunity to offset the carbon emissions of their entire trip when booking in a retail shop or on the internet. The tour operator donates a further 50 cents on top of the amount donated per booking. In 2009, the donations were used to sponsor internationally recognised climate protection projects in Turkey and Peru. Customers of Thomson Travel and First Choice can offset their emissions through the World Care Fund.
Offsetting business trips
For the first time, TUI AG retroactively offset all carbon emissions for flights taken by their employees in the 2009 short financial year through the myclimate foundation. A total of 156 tonnes of carbon were offset. With the start of the new financial year 2009/10, TUI Deutschland will also offset all emissions from business flights.
In 2009, the TUI Group again participated in industry-wide carbon disclosure activities. TUI’s emissions account was described in Carbon Disclosure Project 7 alongside the strategic aspects of TUI AG’s climate policy and was made accessible to international analysts and investors.
Efficient use of resources at TUI Hotels & Resorts
TUI hotel brands actively promote efficient use of natural resources. Examples include Riu, which established the use of energy saving bulbs in its sourcing policy in 2009 in order to reduce power consumption in the hotel complexes. Consistent use of such bulbs in many sections of their facilities saved 7,500 tonnes of carbon emissions.
The economy and biodiversity
In the short financial year under review, TUI continued work towards implementation of the Leadership Declaration by the Business & Biodiversity Initiative of the Federal Ministry for the Environment. This entails a commitment to analyse the effects of business operations on biodiversity and the inclusion of biodiversity criteria in the environmental management system.
Year of the Gorilla 2009
TUI supported Year of the Gorilla 2009, an initiative under the Bonn Convention (CMS) in cooperation with the Great Ape Survival Project of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). With its subsidiary Kenyan agency Pollman’s Tours & Safaris, TUI launched a new awareness-raising campaign in local communities in June in order to raise people’s awareness for the endangered status of the great apes and call for activities to rescue gorilla habitats.
Following a successful start of the project, Riu continued its cooperation with the initiative for the protection of species with a project to protect sea turtles in the Cape Verde Islands. Nocturnal patrols and safe-nesting measures were organised in partnership with the local population to protect the nests of the endangered Caretta caretta species. Visitor groups on supervised tours from Riu resorts had an opportunity to watch the turtles hatch.
Environmental quality in the TUI holiday hotels
EcoResort environmental quality label
In the short financial year 2009, 49 Group-owned hotel and club facilities in TUI Hotels & Resorts were awarded the EcoResort environmental quality label following inspection by external environment experts. All complexes run by TUI Hotels & Resorts meet high performance, quality and environmental standards. The criteria for a hotel to qualify for the EcoResort label go substantially beyond these standards. The hotels awarded this label have a certified environmental management system based on a recognised national or international environmental standard such as ISO 14001, engage in efficient use of resources and support cultural, social or ecological projects.
TUI Environmental Champion
The 100 most environmentally-friendly hotels from TUI Deutschland’s product portfolio again received the TUI Environmental Champion award in 2009. The ecological commitment of the contract hotels was determined on the basis of, for example, a checklist and the results of a TUI customer survey.
Sustainable product development
One of the key tasks is to develop sustainable products adapted to future needs. Customers increasingly factor in the perceived ecological and social responsibility of companies in taking purchasing decisions.
In the German market, the Volunteer travel portfolio of i-to-i Travel was launched in the summer of 2009. It offers customers a combination of travel experiences and voluntary social work. Local partners organise environmental and community projects in more than 20 destinations, which customers can support with their voluntary input.
Greener Holidays
The British First Choice tour operator published its Greener Holidays brochure for the first time in 2009. The online brochure features sustainable travel products offered by the company and presents particularly environmentally-friendly hotels.
TUI’s Little Guide to Protecting Species
Working with the Federal Office for Nature Preservation, TUI developed a souvenir guide called Der kleine TUI Artenschützer (TUI’s Little Guide to Protecting Species) in 2009. It gives TUI customers travelling to destinations relevant information about prohibited souvenirs made from endangered species and provides suggestions on how to buy alternative, fair souvenirs that also sustainably promote the local economy.
Corporate citizenship
TUI AG and its subsidiaries acknowledge their social responsibility at their sites across the world and in the tourist destinations.
Framework agreement on sustainable development in the Balearics
In February 2009, TUI AG and the Balearics Government renewed a framework agreement on the sustainable development of tourism in the Spanish islands. One of the first projects is the TUI Forest, which is being planted on a 48-hectare plot in a nature reserve in Majorca. The reafforestation measures have been sponsored from a fixed amount donated for every booking of a trip to the Balearics since June 2009.
Futouris e.V.
Futouris – Die Nachhaltigkeitsinitiative (Futouris – the Sustainability Initiative), launched in the short financial year under review, promotes worldwide dialogue with the host communities. In addition to TUI AG, its original members are TUI Deutschland, TUI Austria, TUI Suisse, TUI Leisure Travel, Gebeco and airtours. Futouris carries out projects to improve living conditions, support education, protect nature and the environment and preserve biodiversity. It started under the patronage of the German Travel Industry Association (DRV) and is intended to be an industry solution for the tourism sector. Those responsible in the destinations, environmental and development organisations, travel advisors, employees and customers will also be included. Projects sponsored include the training project Growing the Future, run by the Grootbos Foundation in South Africa. This programme provides unemployed women in the Gansbaai region with state-certified agricultural training. Participants successfully finishing the course will be given a plot of land.
Drinking cups for drinking water
In 2009, TUI launched the Drinking cups for drinking water initiative in cooperation with the Global Nature Fund (GNF) and the premier league football club Hannover 96. The campain was supported by Rote Kurve, the umbrella organisation of supporters’ clubs. At every home match, spectators are invited to donate the deposit on the drinking cups at stalls run by volunteers. The donations are used to sponsor the installation of solar-powered drinking water processing systems in Kenyan schools and communities that are not connected to a power grid.
Support for disadvantaged children and teenagers
Beluga School for Life
Since 2009, TUI has been an official sponsor of the Beluga School for Life. The aid project for orphans and children in need in Khao Lak (Thailand), established in 2004, above all offers psycho-social support to victims of the 2004 tsunami. School activities focus on workshop-centred operations. Beluga School for Life Charity Travel offers tours to the region to provide holidaymakers, including TUI customers, with an impression of everyday life in the communities.
ECPAT
In 2009, TUI Group companies continued their worldwide commitment to protecting children from sexual abuse. During the TUI destination managers meeting in spring 2009, TUI Deutschland held a company fair involving the Regional Office of Criminal Investigation and ECPAT. TUI Deutschland also organised workshops to raise the awareness of its hotel purchasing staff about this issue. TUI tour reps were offered training programmes on the protection of children as part of the TUI module ‘Permanent employee training’ in the short financial year under review. Voluntary members of the ECPAT initiative also attended TUI Green Days 2009 and informed the staff at the Hanover site about their work.
In 2009, TUI AG again supported the Peter Maffay Foundation with 150 free flights. The foundation supports children traumatised due to domestic violence or sexual abuse or else to severe diseases.
TUI sponsorship
The sponsorship scheme run by TUI employees in Hanover supported an initiative in 2009 by ‘Mittendrin – Verein für die Integration von Menschen mit Behinderungen in Hannover e.V.’ for the integration of people with disabilities. The association sponsors families with disabled children and supports schools and day care centres in creating integrative care schemes. Donations collected under TUI’s sponsorship scheme are helping to fund the establishment of a counselling centre.
Activities by the foundations
Further information www.tui-stiftung.de
The TUI Foundation was established in 2000 to mark the 75th anniversary of Preussag AG, now TUI AG. TUI AG clusters its social and public activities in Lower Saxony in the work of the Foundation.
From January to September 2009, the TUI Foundation sponsored more than twenty selected projects in the four main sponsorship areas: science and research, school projects, qualification schemes for unemployed young people, and culture and arts.
In science and research, the TUI Foundation has, for the last four years, funded the supporting research for the ‘Prävention durch frühe Förderung’ (sure-start education) project by the Criminological Research Institute of Lower Saxony. This pilot project tests new forms of sure-start education designed to prevent criminal behaviour among children in high-risk families and monitors the efficacy of these methods.
Another initiative in science and research was the Rudolf Schoen Award, presented for the twenty-first time in 2009 for the best scientific publication at Hanover’s Medical University (MHH). Funding was also provided for selected research projects by junior scientists at the MHH. The TUI Foundation intensively supports the care network for severely ill children and young people, aimed to significantly improve out-patient care for these children.
In school projects, the TUI Foundation sponsored a total of eight projects in Lower Saxony, including one to promote reading skills in primary schools. In the qualification field, two centres for unemployed young people were sponsored to teach young people the skills they need to obtain a place in vocational training. In addition, the Foundation continued to sponsor five additional traineeships for disadvantaged teenagers in cooperation with Paritätischer Landesverband Niedersachsen, the regional federation of social welfare associations.
A new award for children and youth projects in Hanover was presented for the first time in 2009: ‘Gemeinsam in Hanover – Wir sind die Zukunft’ (Together in Hanover – We are the Future). A prominent jury selected six winning projects. The award will be made annually in future.
In culture and arts, the focus was also on projects involving children and young people. For example, funding was provided for a production by ‘junges schauspiel hannover’ when young people wrote and staged a play on their own. At the ‘Festival Theaterformen Hannover’, a project that aims to build bridges between the generations was selected for sponsorship.