KDS is planning to unveil an enhanced version of its end-to-end T&E solution that will enable carbon emissions to be calculated and managed for each business trip.
The Proof of Concept is based on the class-leading KDS Corporate Version 6 system.  It is a working demonstration of how KDS believes travel management systems will very soon be able to help companies integrate their travel and Corporate Social Responsibility policies.  The unveiled system will give an insight into advanced product development currently underway at KDS that is expected to produce a commercially available product by the second half of 2007.

KDS is currently running a survey jointly with ACTE (the Association of Corporate Travel Executives) to assess corporate thinking and practice with regard to environmental travel issues.  The findings will be announced at a press conference during the show at 11:45am on February 13 in the Hospitality Lounge.

“The findings of the ACTE/KDS survey will show that companies are trying to grapple with the environmental impact of their travel.  However, they currently lack the tools to help them do this effectively”, says Yves Weisselberger, CEO of KDS.  “We see KDS Version 6 as the ideal platform for such a next generation solution, because it gives a complete end-to-end picture of any business journey.”

KDS Version 6 offers the widest range of travel content in the industry and is therefore ideally placed to help users consider greener travel options.  The Proof of Concept builds on this by integrating a Carbon Calculator from the CarbonNeutral Company, one of the world’s leading climate change businesses.  This will give travellers an actual measure of the emissions that their planned journey will create, providing a firmer basis for their decision-making.  Furthermore, the expense component of the KDS solution means that environmental impact can be measured more completely after a trip, once associated expense claims are entered into the system.

This fully integrated emissions measurement facility will provide the hard data essential to any practical implementation of environmentally responsible corporate travel.  In addition, since KDS Version 6 is designed to be programmed with customers’ unique travel policies, the intended new green system will enable environmentally based policies to be automatically enforced.

As well as helping companies to minimise their emissions through informed travel decisions, the new concept also facilitates the carbon offsetting arrangements that a customer may have in place with its own third party provider.  By calculating the total emissions impact of the journey, the system generates a figure that, if desired, the company may charge to its offsetting programme at the click of a mouse.

For each visitor to its stand KDS will calculate the CO2 emissions associated with their journey to the show.  The company will then offset this amount for them as a demonstration of the ease of use and value of this powerful new concept.

“There is much debate about the best way to manage emissions, but there is an emerging consensus that it must involve both reductions and some degree of offsetting”, says Weisselberger.  “The technology we have in development will directly address both issues and provide the easy to use management tool that industry so clearly needs.”
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