Group CEO's statement

When Thomas Cook created the first package holiday in 1841, he did so with a sense of social responsibility. His determination to improve the lives of working people by giving them opportunities to learn through travel was pioneering. Today, the business of being a socially responsible travel company is more complex.

Longevity is one of our business objectives and to be a successful business today we need to be economically, environmentally and socially sustainable. For Thomas Cook Group, that means addressing a wide range of long-term challenges, including providing a great holiday experience for customers while ensuring their security and safety, maintaining a committed and engaged workforce, improving fuel efficiency and monitoring the carbon emissions from our planes; and encouraging sustainable practices in a global supply chain.

The Icelandic volcanic ash cloud that created widespread disruption in 2010 provides an example of our responsiveness to challenging global events. The hard work of Thomas Cook Group employees ensured that the vast majority of our customers were brought home within only five days of the aviation ban being lifted. We received excellent feedback from our passengers and I believe that our focus on our customers' welfare contributed to the company's prompt return to normal trading after the disruption.

With so many different sustainability concerns to address, having robust management systems in place is essential. I am proud of the progress we made in this area in 2010. This year saw the launch of our Group Working Party on Sustainability, which enables all parts of our business to share good practice and input to our sustainability strategy. Importantly, it also ensures there is a named person responsible for sustainability in every part of the world where we operate; as a result we are already seeing improvements in our data reporting.

Our achievements in 2010 include our UK airline becoming the country's first and only to receive accreditation to the ISO 14001 international standard for environmental management. This momentous accomplishment is testimony to Thomas Cook Airlines' investment in improving environmental performance across every area of its operations, from on-board recycling to saving energy in the hangar. What is more, it was closely followed by our Scandinavian airline also achieving ISO 14001 accreditation. We also rolled our employee share save scheme out to the entire Group, giving everyone who works with us the opportunity to share in our success. And we maintained our commitment to the Travelife Sustainability System for hotels and other tourism companies: over a million Thomas Cook customers have now stayed in hotels we have audited against the Travelife criteria.

Particularly close to my heart is the support we can give to those less fortunate than ourselves. I continue to chair the Board of Trustees of the Thomas Cook Children's Charity and insist that our company pays all administration costs so that every penny donated directly helps children. When the devastating earthquake hit Haiti in January, we donated space on our planes to the Disasters Emergency Committee, flying out surgical teams, medical kit and portable water supply equipment. We also provided financial support to Just A Drop, a charity helping displaced families in Haiti return to their homes.

There is always more that can be done and we are putting plans in place to further improve our sustainability performance. Among our priorities looking forward are: improving our data reporting processes then establishing longer-term environmental targets; implementing formal stakeholder engagement processes; strengthening our measurement and reporting of social goals; and setting out a plan to achieve long-term emissions targets.

Tourism today is very different from when Thomas Cook started out 170 years ago, but his socially responsible spirit lives on in our company. I firmly believe our commitment to sustainability makes us a stronger business and will help to ensure that Thomas Cook Group is still here in another 170 years' time.

Manny Fontenla-Novoa,
Group Chief Executive Officer

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