The specialist provider of venue and travel solutions to the corporate market, Inntel, has called for more hotels, hotel groups and venues to take part in an industry initiative to benchmark carbon emissions for their properties.

The scheme, run by Carepar, allows business travellers and meetings and events organisers to better understand the emissions produced from their hotel or venue usage, whether for accommodation, conferences or events.

A number of Inntel clients including BT, the Law Society, Lloyds TSB and SAS Software, have specifically asked for their carbon emissions to be measured for hotels and conferencing in the future.

Douglas O’Neill, Inntel’s Managing Director, commented: “Inntel understands that the impact of travel and attending events upon the environment is becoming an increasingly important factor for businesses. It is our duty, as a conscientious operator, to provide our customers with this information, to help them make an informed decision about their carbon footprint. Carepar allows us to provide an emission rating for every booking our clients make, which is an effective way to measure an individual’s carbon footprint and encourage clients to work towards ways of minimising it.”

Carepar was launched by The Hotel Carbon Index Company under the directorship of Peter Ducker, Executive Director of the HBAA.

Ducker commented, “We are delighted that Inntel has taken the lead by backing this new and important industry standard. To date, its introduction has enabled thousands of bookers to better understand the impact their bookings have on the environment, but we would still like to see more providers sign up to the service, particularly as we are seeing an increased uptake in the amount of clients who now request this information. It is evident that this area is becoming a higher priority for business travellers, and illustrates that the environmental impact of a company is an increasing priority in business. It is hugely important that the industry fully embraces the importance of this initiative.”

Ducker continued, “Carepar is helping solve the confusion of carbon emissions, by providing one industry benchmark allowing all venues to be compared using the same criteria – giving them a tool to better manage their individual ratings and in the long-term reduce their emissions.”

The Hotel Carbon Index Company takes fixed and variable data from hotels and internationally recognised values for energy related emissions, which is then used to calculate specific CO2 values for each room type and named meeting rooms. The information is then downloaded onto the agent’s database, where it can be used to inform choices and to provide a value for client’s hotel and venue usage over time.