The 2020 Travel Retail Awards will place sustainability centre-stage at the ceremony, which will be held on Tuesday 12 May at The Conrad Hotel, Singapore.  

Awards organiser TRBusiness has partnered with Platinum Sponsor Mars Wrigley to raise awareness and funds for global environmental organisation the Foundation for Environmental Education (FEE).

The FEE is the world’s largest environmental education organisation with members in over 70 countries. The global environmental education body empowers people to take meaningful and purposeful action to help create a more sustainable world, through five ground-breaking programmes.

One of these, the Litter Less Campaign, which is a joint initiative launched by the Mars Wrigley Foundation together with the FEE, will be the beneficiary of the funds raised during the 2020 Awards dinner.

EDUCATING TOMORROW’S LEADERS, TODAY
The Litter Less Campaign educates children and youth on the issue of litter and gives them the opportunity to engage their local communities in awareness-raising activities. Since its launch in 2011, the Litter Less Campaign has been helping children across the world learn about the challenges of litter and waste in their community, empowering them to become leaders and drive sustainable, positive behavioural change.

Over the next two years, Litter Less will be conducted in 15 countries, including both developed and developing nations. The funds raised during the Travel Retail Awards dinner in May will be allocated to a specific campaign that will help children in the region of New Delhi, India.

FEE will allocate the funding to three specific ‘Eco-Schools’ and 9 ‘Young Reporters for the Environment’ schools and colleges it works with, which will ultimately benefit around 6,000 students in total and reach hundreds of communities in the New Delhi region, where littering is a severe issue and education is desperately needed.

Click here to book your tickets to the 2020 TRBusiness Travel Retail Awards dinner, which takes place on Tuesday 12 May at the Conrad Hotel in Singapore during the TFWA Asia Pacific Exhibition and Conference.

Places are limited so please book early to avoid disappointment.

The children and youth targeted by the programme range in age from 4-25. As well as the children, teachers and other school staff, the parents and local authorities will also be impacted by the educational campaign.

The programme will help reduce littering, increase recycling, introduce new and improve existing waste management systems and improve overall awareness of environmental issues among the children, youth and their communities.

‘BETTER MOMENTS THAT MAKE THE WORLD SMILE’

Gary Clarke, General Manager, Mars Wrigley ITR, underlined the importance of collaborative action on environmental education and the positive results already achieved through the Litter Less Campaign: “As a business that is all about better moments that make the world smile, Mars Wrigley ITR is proud to partner with TRBusiness to raise awareness and funds for the Litter Less Campaign. FEE’s Litter Less projects drive behaviour change around litter and waste prevention.

They will create better communities in India with the support from the travel retail community, and we are very excited about the opportunity to drive impact in this way.”

Daniel Schaffer, CEO of Foundation for Environmental Education welcomed the collaboration: “FEE is privileged for the funding and for the partnership it has been granted by the Mars Wrigley Foundation since 2011. Litter is a form of pollution that poses an increasing global problem but that can be solved by change in individual behaviour.

“The Litter Less Campaign is an essential part of our ongoing efforts to educate and change the behaviour of children, youth and adults around the world to reduce the negative impacts of litter. Any additional support that can help us in our pursuit to make schools hubs of positive change will be greatly valued and put to good use. We are grateful to be the designated charity of the Travel Retail Awards and thank the travel retail industry for your generous support and cooperation.”

A CHARITABLE TRADITION

Nigel Hardy and Janice Hook, Owners at TRBusiness added: “We cannot do enough to address the global environmental concerns of today. We have seen immense support following our own initiatives to influence the industry to take action through the Travel Retail Plastic Pledge and the Travel Retail Sustainability Forum.

“We believe educating children and youth on environmental issues is absolutely vital to ensuring the planet becomes and remains a priority for future generations. We are delighted to work with the Mars Wrigley Foundation and FEE on this extremely worthwhile initiative.”

The TRBusiness Travel Retail Awards raised just under £5000 in 2018 for Women in Travel Retail’s chosen charity of the year, Hand in Hand for Haiti and in 2019 just over £5,000 for the Dufry nominated charity SOS Children’s Villages, which Dufry then generously matched to make a total of over £10,000 raised during the evening.

The funds are raised through a charity prize raffle, thanks to many high-value product donations from the Awards sponsors and participants as well as a number of generous cash donations made during the evening in addition to the ticket sales. For more information and to pledge a prize in the 2020 charity the raffle please contact Michael Barrett: [email protected].

GREEN AIRPORT AWARD DRAWS STRONG INTEREST

The sustainability focus will be present throughout the  awards ceremony. In addition to the environmental charity fundraiser, the industry will celebrate the first consumer-voted environmental initiative at an airport. The Best Green Initiative at an Airport Award, new in 2020, has drawn significant interest from all sectors of the industry and all world regions with a large number of extremely worthy and exemplary initiatives.

Click here to book your tickets to the 2020 TRBusiness Travel Retail Awards dinner, which takes place on Tuesday 12 May at the Conrad Hotel in Singapore during the TFWA Asia Pacific Exhibition and Conference.

Places are limited so please book early to avoid disappointment.