“Good Tourism” Partners to jointly support UN SDGs, climate-friendly travel

New memor­andum of under­stand­ing (MOU) between part­ners of The “Good Tour­ism” Blog signed to mark World Envir­on­ment Day, June 5.

On World Envir­on­ment Day, June 5, “GT” Part­ners Plan­et Hap­pi­ness and SUN^x signed a MOU related to the United Nations (UN) Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment Goals (SDGs) and cli­mate-friendly travel.

Accord­ing to a news release, the aim is to cre­ate mutu­al sup­port between Plan­et Hap­pi­ness, with its object­ive of meas­ur­ing and enhan­cing host well-being in tour­ism des­tin­a­tions, and SUN^x, which aims to advance cli­mate-friendly travel based on low car­bon and green­house gas out­puts. Both parties will focus atten­tion on the well-being agenda to strengthen des­tin­a­tion sus­tain­ab­il­ity. They will work togeth­er part­ner­ing with des­tin­a­tions to engage busi­nesses and host com­munit­ies in steps to deliv­er cli­mate-friendly travel. 

“We’re enter­ing a new era of respons­ible travel and des­tin­a­tion sus­tain­ab­il­ity,” Paul Rogers, co-founder of Plan­et Hap­pi­ness, a tour­ism and big data pro­ject of non-profit Hap­pi­ness Alli­ance, said. “Our MOU with SUN^x enables us both to cam­paign for des­tin­a­tion sus­tain­ab­il­ity in a way that respects host com­munit­ies, their cul­tur­al her­it­age, and the nat­ur­al envir­on­ment,” Dr Rogers explained.

On sign­ing the agree­ment, June 5, Geof­frey Lip­man, dir­ect­or and co-founder of SUN^x, com­men­ted: “In hon­our of World Envir­on­ment Day and cli­mate and sus­tain­ab­il­ity act­iv­ist, the late Maurice Strong, SUN^x Malta and Plan­et Hap­pi­ness will work to ensure that hap­pi­ness is factored into cli­mate-friendly low-car­bon travel goals, the UN’s Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment Goals, and the 2015 Par­is Cli­mate Agreement.

“We’re delighted to add Plan­et Hap­pi­ness to our grow­ing list of SDG17 Part­ners. We’re grate­ful for their shared com­mit­ment to make a bet­ter world for all our kids,” he said.

Plan­et Hap­pi­ness and SUN^x are now invit­ing travel & tour­ism com­pan­ies and des­tin­a­tions to register to help the well-being and cli­mate-friendly travel (CFT) agenda. They can do this by request­ing a well-being sur­vey of a des­tin­a­tion from Plan­et Hap­pi­ness and com­mit­ting to SUN^x’s CFT Registry.

SUN^x launches Climate-Friendly Travel to Zero

On World Envir­on­ment Day, SUN^x announced its Cli­mate Friendly Travel to Zero flag­ship ini­ti­at­ive, aligned with the UN’s Race to Zero.

“Based on the latest sci­ence, a 2050 tar­get of Zero Green­house Gas (GHG) is the min­im­um ulti­mately needed to beat the exist­en­tial Cli­mate Crisis,” accord­ing to a dif­fer­ent news release. “By advoc­at­ing a Zero GHG 2050 tar­get we take the dir­ect line to the UN Par­is 1.5 goal. Start­ing now.

“How­ever, recog­niz­ing net car­bon neut­ral is today’s norm, with­in the SUN^x Malta Cli­mate Friendly Travel to Zero frame­work, we will work with com­pan­ies and com­munit­ies via our CFT Registry and through Strong Cli­mate Cham­pi­ons (PDF), to help them devel­op Sus­tain­ab­il­ity and Cli­mate Plans that trans­form over time from Net Zero Car­bon to Abso­lute Zero GHG.”

Prof Lip­man said: “Sci­ence tells us we have almost reached 1.2^o towards the Par­is Agreement’s tar­gets today and are head­ing for 3 – 5^o increase by 2050. That would be an exist­en­tial cata­strophe, with weath­er extremes lead­ing to intensi­fy­ing fires, floods, droughts, and cli­mate refugees. 

“At SUN^x Malta, we are tak­ing the high ground in sup­port of sci­ence. We strongly believe that Cli­mate Friendly Travel (CFT) — Low Car­bon: SDG linked: Par­is 1.5^o, is the best way for Travel & Tour­ism to get on board the UN 2030/2050 Roadmap for a green and clean future for our kids. UN Sec­ret­ary Gen­er­al Ant­o­nio Guterres has called for all post pan­dem­ic Tour­ism to be sus­tain­able and Cli­mate Friendly. CFT will help deliv­er that.

“Cli­mate Friendly Travel to Zero adds anoth­er dimen­sion: tar­get­ing Zero Green­house Gases by 2050, is a gold stand­ard to ensure that we Bend Our Trend of emis­sions as rap­idly as needed to match the science.

“How­ever, as Net Car­bon Neut­ral meas­ures are what the inter­na­tion­al com­munity is cur­rently using for trans­ition, we clearly will fol­low this frame­work, but very con­scious it is unlikely to be enough to reach our 2050 goal of 1.5 degrees. Our new ini­ti­at­ive will be a con­stant stra­tegic remind­er of the gap between mar­ket­place and science.

“Travel & Tour­ism Stake­hold­ers, like the rest of soci­ety, must jour­ney along vari­ous intensi­fy­ing paths from where they are today, if our sec­tor is to play its part in the glob­al trans­form­a­tion. Indi­vidu­ally, every com­pany and com­munity must chart its unique course. Col­lect­ively we must be in the same place by 2050.

Connections between well-being and wildlife

Plan­et Hap­pi­ness also announced the sign­ing of a MOU with One Nature Glob­al, a non-profit char­it­able organ­isa­tion in the United States that focuses upon con­nectiv­ity between human well-being and wild­life conservation.

Beth All­good, the founder of One Nature Glob­al said: “It’s so import­ant that we value and meas­ure what really mat­ters and move bey­ond GDP as a meas­ure of human pro­gress. To improve com­munity well-being and stop the spe­cies extinc­tion crisis, we must under­stand and demon­strate the inter­con­nec­tion of wild­life and human well-being so anim­als, people and nature can flour­ish togeth­er. That’s why we will work with Plan­et Hap­pi­ness to pro­tect wild anim­als and hab­it­ats by con­duct­ing research that indic­ates the value of wild­life con­ser­va­tion to healthy and happy human communities.”

Recog­nising that the travel and tour­ism sec­tor has suffered dev­ast­at­ing losses owing to COVID-19, Plan­et Hap­pi­ness believes now is the time for the industry to evolve and place des­tin­a­tion well-being front and centre.

New options for destinations, host communities, conservationists

Accord­ing to its release, Plan­et Hap­pi­ness’ part­ner­ships with SUN^x and One Nature Glob­al provide des­tin­a­tions with new options and best prac­tices to engage host com­munit­ies and pri­or­it­ise cli­mate-friendly travel and wild­life con­ser­va­tion, depend­ing on loc­al devel­op­ment priorities.

Dr Rogers has giv­en new insights on pri­or­it­ising well-being in travel and tour­ism here on The “Good Tour­ism” Blog.

Fea­tured image (top of post): Abstrac­tion by GDJ (CC0) via Pixabay.