TMS Introduces Carbon Offset Shuttle Program for Meetings Industry

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to our or .

| Sourced From |

Transportation Management Services (TMS), a Sandy Spring, Md.-based provider of event transportation services for clients in the meetings and events industry, has launched a new Carbon Offset Shuttle Program that provides a negative carbon footprint for its entire fleet of ground transportation, it announced last week.

Initially introduced in mid-2008 for a small group of TMS clients, the Carbon Offset Shuttle Program includes a post-show analysis of on-site shuttle information that’s designed to tell show organizers how many gallons of diesel fuel each of their buses used, along with the number of numeric tons of CO2 emissions that those same buses emitted. Armed with that information, show organizers can then make an appropriate donation to TMS’ partner organization, CarbonFund.org, in order to offset their shuttles’ carbon emissions.

“TMS’ goal is to have a negative carbon footprint across all of our events,” TMS Chief Operating Officer Kevin O’Connor said in a statement. “To that end, we’ve teamed with the Carbon Fund and we can now let our clients decide how they want the offsets to be used (i.e. energy efficiency, renewable energy, etc.).”

During its test phase last year, the Carbon Offset Shuttle Program successfully offset a total of 720 tons of CO2 emissions that were generated by shuttle buses at six meetings and conventions.

Meetings and events taking place in the Carbon Offset Shuttle Program test phase last year included the Greenbuild International Conference & Expo, which offset 125 tons of CO2; the MLB All-Star Game, which offset 175 tons of CO2; the Natural Products Expo East & West, which offset 70 tons of CO2; Cisco Systems Global Sales Meetings, which offset 225 tons of CO2; the National Apartment Association Conference & Expo, which offset 25 tons of CO2; and VM World, which offset 100 tons of CO2.

Due to the success of its test phase, TMS has now made the Carbon Offset Shuttle Program available free of charge to any association, corporation or event organizer that procures TMS as its shuttle transportation provider.