Journey Towards Sustainability: Trip.com Group Highlights ESG Progress & Key Actions in Latest Report

• Four-pillar ESG framework (community, family, environment, stakeholders) reaffirmed
• Company-sponsored childcare subsidy benefits over 500 employees
• Trip.Biz secures EcoVadis sustainability silver rating, surpassing 85% of global corporations participating in the same rating system

SINGAPORE, Aug. 29, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Trip.com Group has published its annual Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) report, outlining its actions to ensure progress towards a more sustainable future for the travel industry and creating positive long-term social impact.

Organised around its four key areas of focus (community, family, environment, stakeholder), the Group's 5th ESG report reflects its activities over the last reporting period in alignment with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs), and reaffirms the priorities of its ESG framework.

Community Friendly

Trip.com Group's community-friendly objectives aim to support rural prosperity and ensure traveller safety, including through partnerships with local communities and organisations. The Group's key areas of focus include improving local employment opportunities, contributing to public welfare in key villages, empowering tourist villages at scale, and providing training for rural tourism professionals. The Group carries out these initiatives with a view to supporting the realisation of the United Nations 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, including goals such as ending poverty (SDG1) and promoting sustainable economic growth and decent work (SDG8).

With the goal of fostering local social and economic development, the Group continues to make mindful and active investments in the community, including through its engagement of nearly 100% of local suppliers for its Trip.com Country Retreat in China. The Group further seeks to ensure that the benefits generated by this economic activity contribute to the local community, including through the creation of 20,000 indirect jobs, and giving priority to the engagement of local talent.

Furthermore, Trip.com Group's global travel SOS Service, which helps ensure global travel safety, has extended its coverage to over 440 million passengers, handling more than 20,000 requests, and achieving a resolution success rate of 98%.

Family Friendly 

Trip.com Group continues to work towards establishing itself as a leading family-friendly travel company, including through key initiatives aimed at supporting working parents. The company is committed to creating a diverse and inclusive workspace through comprehensive and equitable employee welfare policies, designed to offer equal promotional and development opportunities for all, with an emphasis on empowering women.

The Group seeks to minimise the challenges faced by employees in balancing their professional and family lives, including by enhancing workplace benefits and creating a family-friendly environment. It also aims to implement a sound management system for a healthy working environment, in line with global standards.

In recent years, the Group has focused on promoting employee wellness through a hybrid work model, which has been implemented across 117 offices in 39 countries. The initiative has saved an estimated total of 900,000 hours of commuting time, and benefited 60% of families with children.

Trip.com Group takes pride in its strides towards gender diversity, equity, and inclusivity, as evidenced by its latest updates: Women comprise 57.5% of the workforce, accounting for 61.4% of entry-level roles, 43.5% of middle management positions, and 32.5% of senior roles. Over 60% of recently promoted senior managers were women with children.

Additionally, the company has successfully made its company-sponsored childcare subsidy available to 541 employees, with nearly 100% of female employees returning to work post-maternity leave.

Environmentally Focused 

Trip.com Group recognises the essential link between nature and people, which is at the heart of the travel experience. The Group firmly believes that it is a shared responsibility of the industry to protect the environment and strives to reduce its carbon footprint by offering global travellers lower-emission travel options.

In line with this objective, Trip.com Group joined the Science Based Target initiative (SBTi) and aims to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. Additionally, the Group also aims to introduce over 10,000 lower-carbon travel products, targeting 100 million travellers to consider adopting lower-carbon travel practices. These targets seek to elevate environmental consciousness among customers and employees.

As of 2023, progress includes providing additional lower-carbon travel products for consumers to choose from, such as flights with lower emissions and electric cars (more details can be found in our 2023 ESG report). Carbon data also covers 96% of flights, 56% of rental car services for leisure travel products, and 98% of transportation services for business travel products. Overall, Trip.com Group has provided over 72 million travellers with access to lower-emission travel alternatives.

Furthermore, Trip.com Group's corporate travel division, Trip.Biz, achieved recognition by securing the EcoVadis Sustainability Silver rating, surpassing 85% of companies participating in the same rating system. Trip.Biz launched its carbon management products, allowing corporate clients to allocate carbon budget quotas for different departments. This reflects its dedication to allow for more business travellers to have greater options to travel more sustainably.

Stakeholder Friendly 

Trip.com Group remains dedicated to upholding transparent corporate governance, including through its engagement with stakeholders to ensure customer privacy and information security, while also promoting the adoption of greener options across the supply chain.

The Group actively encourages and supports suppliers in steering efforts towards more sustainable practices. It has also taken measures to ensure adherence to these principles in all aspects of its operations, including through the establishment of an ESG risk management committee in the last reporting year. It has also taken care to ensure company-wide awareness and compliance, including through security and privacy training, completed by 100% of employees, and averaging nearly 39 hours per person.

Through its ESG strategy, the Group aims to continue to deliver key actions, with a focus on adding value and enhancing the travel industry for all.

"Trip.com Group affirms its commitment to sustainable development through our ESG strategy, which prioritises the environment, communities, families and stakeholders, as well as our goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2050," said Trip.com Group CEO Jane Sun. "In line with our mission to enable millions of travellers to pursue the perfect trip for a better world, we remain focused on promoting sustainable tourism and providing a worry-free travel experience."

"We are proud to collaborate with customers and partners to address the environmental, social and governance challenges of today, and we look forward to creating a future of shared growth together."

For more information on Trip.com Group's ESG report, please visit: https://investors.trip.com/about-the-company/esg/ 

About Trip.com Group

Trip.com Group is a leading global travel service provider comprising of Trip.com, Ctrip, Skyscanner, and Qunar. Across its platforms, Trip.com Group helps travellers around the world make informed and cost-effective bookings for travel products and services and enables partners to connect their offerings with users through the aggregation of comprehensive travel-related content and resources, and an advanced transaction platform consisting of apps, websites and 24/7 customer service centres. Founded in 1999 and listed on NASDAQ in 2003 and HKEX in 2021, Trip.com Group has become one of the best-known travel groups in the world, with the mission "to pursue the perfect trip for a better world". Find out more about Trip.com Group here: group.trip.com.

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source: Trip.com Group