New Global Sustainability Officer Appointed

FCM’s parent company, Flight Centre Travel Group (FCTG), has appointed Michelle Degenhardt as its Global Sustainability Officer.

FCM Australia General Manager, Melissa Elf, welcomed the announcement and said the appointment was an exciting development with sustainability being a key focus area for the business locally and across the network.

This is a newly created role for our global business that will help to bring cohesion and direction to our future roadmap of sustainability initiatives,” Melissa said. “Our business in Australia has been very active in this space in terms of supporting the community, the environment and working on ways to make our supplier chain and offering for customers more sustainable. Michelle’s work in this space will certainly further our commitment to sustainability for the long term, which is awesome for all of FCTG’s corporate and leisure brands.

FCM’s most recent sustainability initiative includes the launch of the carbon-emissions display in the online booking tool, which details how much CO2 has been emitted from flights.

Michelle will work closely with FCM’s teams to help the business continue practices that are economically, environmentally and socially sustainable. She will also work with the business and external stakeholders to further develop and oversee the execution of strategies to deliver on the organisation’s environmental, social and governance (ESG) objectives.

Michelle is based in FCTG’s global head office in Brisbane and has worked for the company for 17 years. Formerly the company’s culture and employee engagement leader, Michelle also had oversight of the Flight Centre Foundation in Australia.

During her career with FCTG, Michelle has been involved in numerous sustainability-related projects, including the development of the company’s Responsible Travel charter and the creation of a head office recycling and waste reduction program.

As a signatory to the United Nations Global Compact, FCTG will this year invest more into its corporate social responsibility activities, including initiatives to support diversity, equality and inclusion. The company has launched its Come As You Are campaign and is enhancing its Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP) in Australia.

FCTG recently announced five $30,000 grants in Australia from the Flight Centre Foundation to:

Escabags (escape bags for domestic violence victims)
Happy Paws Happy Hearts (animal therapy for young people)
Food For Change (farming for food relief)
Little Wings (transport for children to treatments and doctors to rural communities)
National Homeless Collective (more than 600 hygiene programs in First Nations communities and schools).