LAS VEGAS, NV – October 13, 2011 – American Express Global Business Travel Meetings & Events and Maxvantage are helping clients with their green meeting objectives with The Carbon Accounting Company’s Green Hotels Global (GHG).  American Express Global Business Travel Meetings & Events is providing its support to increase hotel participation on behalf of their clients and Maxvantage in GHG’s environmental reporting program.

Launched last year, Green Hotels Global initially partnered with hotels to determine and disclose metrics on environmental impact performance to industry stakeholders. Now expanding the program, GHG is working to provide companies with access to environmental data for their meetings programs. The metrics are valuable in both the meeting planning and post-meeting evaluation stages. American Express Global Business Travel Meetings & Events is supporting GHG’s efforts to further expand and develop the program’s hotel participation by enabling 100 additional hotels to participate in the initiative.

“Data is essential to having a successful meetings program and by supporting hotels’ participation in GHG, we are helping our clients have the tools to grasp the environmental footprint of each hotel and event,” Issa Jouaneh, Vice President and General Manager American Express Global Business Travel Meetings & Events. “With this data companies can be better equipped to accomplish meeting objectives that have a maximum return on investment and experience with minimum waste.”

Participating hotels allow American Express Global Business Travel Meeting & Events and Maxvantage clients to compare standardized footprints of carbon and water use as well as waste diversions across all properties generally and per meeting. Clients can access property specific metrics for comparisons during the RFP process which is available through industry-wide meeting booking solutions and also through a Green Hotels Global portal. Additionally, once the event has been completed reports can be generated calculating the hotels’ component of a meeting’s environmental impact.

“Johnson Controls is very serious about reducing its environmental footprint.  Sustainability is one of top five business goals for our organization,” says Karen Lynch, CMP, Global Lead Meetings & Events, Johnson Controls, Inc.  “We were looking for a way to pioneer in the travel & meetings space and Green Hotels Global gives us real metrics for carbon, water and waste for each individual property.  No estimates or guesstimates.  Green Hotels Global helps hotels measure and reduce the metrics that make a real difference to the environment.”

“American Express Global Business Travel Meetings & Events recognized that clients were embarking on large scale green initiatives and that having this data available for meetings and events is necessary to help them reach their goals,” said Justin Raymond, president and Chief Executive Officer, The Carbon Accounting Company.  “We are excited that our tool brings hotels and corporations an opportunity to get a head start on gathering metrics that are expected to be in next year’s standard GBTA hotel RFP and in the new International Tourism Partnership and World Travel & Tourism Council’s hotel carbon measurement methodology, as well as help hotels meet the forthcoming Green Meetings Standards.”

American Express Global Business Travel was the first TMC to offer these metrics to its clients starting last year.  American Express Global Business Travel Meetings & Events, Maxvantage and Green Hotels Global are currently working on developing case studies with clients to help showcase the value that standardized environmental reporting metrics bring to SMM programs.

ABOUT AMERICAN EXPRESS Global Business Travel MEETINGS & EVENTS

American Express Global Business Travel Meetings & Events, a division of American Express Global Business Travel, offers capabilities spanning from program implementation to optimization, delivering powerful meeting experiences for clients. The team is comprised of more than 1000 employees world-wide focused on meeting and event sourcing, planning, contract negotiations, budgeting, expense management, reporting and benchmarking, combined with strategic counsel and integration of leading technology. This end-to-end approach focuses on creating visibility, driving savings and enabling effective meeting experiences.

With more than 40 years in the industry and an in-market presence in over 50 countries, American Express Global Business Travel Meetings & Events is uniquely positioned to help you manage your meetings and events locally, regionally and across the globe. American Express Global Business Travel Meetings & Events works with market leaders to enhance its offering to clients.  Creating alliances that a provide clients with leading creative support for their meetings and events needs.

ABOUT THE CARBON ACCOUNTING COMPANY

The Carbon Accounting Company provides sector-specific environmental sustainability programs and other corporate climate change strategies such as greenhouse gas inventory quantification, reporting and management.

Two of The Carbon Accounting Company’s innovative programs are Green Ride Global and Green Hotels Global.

Green Ride Global is a leading environmental sustainability program for businesses in the ground transportation industry.

Green Hotels Global is a comprehensive, interactive, environmental sustainability benchmarking tool for the global hotel industry.

Media Contact:

Erica Rose
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(o) 212 640 2265
(c) 212 920 7545

American Express Meetings & Events” is a service provided by American Express Global Business Travel (“GBT”). GBT is a joint venture that is not wholly-owned by American Express Company or any of its subsidiaries (“American Express”). “American Express Global Business Travel”, “American Express” and the American Express logo are trademarks of American Express, and are used under limited license