The IHG hotel group has been recognised for its work to make its hotels more environmentally friendly, picking up the inaugural Responsible Travel Management Award (RTM) by the National Business Travel Association (NBTA).

The NBTA said the award recognised IHG's corporate responsibility practices as the “clear benchmark” for sustainability in hotels in Australia and New Zealand, and praised the effort and resources IHG had committed to making its business practices as environmentally sustainable and socially responsible as possible.

IHG Australasia’s director of corporate responsibility Frank Hubbard said the group had invested a lot of time in reaching its sustainability goals.

"We've spent years changing the way we do business across every one of our InterContinental, Crowne Plaza and Holiday Inn hotels, to cut the volume of natural resources being consumed — such as water and energy — and reduce the amount of waste being sent to landfill, and find new ways to foster the social and economic development of the local communities we do business in,” Hubbard said.

“This process has required personal commitments at every level of the business, to get IHG to the point where it is starting to make a difference. It's required nothing less than fundamental shifts in how we run our hotels and engage with our communities, but the positive results of these efforts are more than worth the effort.”

“Time and again, we've been able to prove that responsible business is good business — and receiving recognition for our commitment from major industry organisations like the NBTA certainly spurs us on.”