Three steps travel companies can take to contend with climate change

How does one take mean­ing­ful action to back up a poten­tially hypo­crit­ic­al declar­a­tion about cli­mate? This is a ques­tion that travel & tour­ism com­pan­ies must con­tend with right now, par­tic­u­larly those that rely on air travel for their products and cus­tom­ers. Tour­ism schol­ar Francesca Gal­lone sug­gests three steps that com­pan­ies can take to walk their talk and encour­age others. 

It’s a “Good Tour­ism” Insight. [You too can write a “GT” Insight.]

When it comes to decar­bon­ising the travel industry, many com­pan­ies with­in the sec­tor look to the air­lines to make the sig­ni­fic­ant changes needed. This is unsur­pris­ing giv­en that avi­ation releases more CO₂ per pas­sen­ger than any oth­er mode of transport.

How­ever, the time for wait­ing for change has been and gone; as has the ges­ture by travel com­pan­ies of bolt­ing on eco-pro­jects to gain an ‘easy win’. Fun­da­ment­al changes need to be made and they need to come from travel com­pan­ies themselves.

It is estim­ated that by 2050, avi­ation will account for 22% of all glob­al CO₂ emis­sions.

For many years, gov­ern­ments and air­lines have been using car­bon off­set­ting pro­grammes as the catch-all solu­tion to reduce this fig­ure; with the ICAO estab­lish­ing an industry-wide scheme in 2016 that requires air­lines to can­cel out excess emis­sions that exceed the 2020 bench­mark set. 

How­ever, the unpre­ced­en­ted decline in inter­na­tion­al travel dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic has cre­ated a need for this bench­mark to be reas­sessed, as it no longer reflects the tar­gets agreed by gov­ern­ments in ICAO. As such, it is now recom­men­ded that 2019 emis­sions are used as a baseline instead.

Also see Dav­id Gill­banks’ op-ed
“Don’t pan­ic: Oppor­tun­ity, ingenu­ity will give us cli­mate-friendly travel”

In any case, off­set­ting ini­ti­at­ives have been heav­ily con­tested, with envir­on­ment­al­ists arguing that they do not address the real issue of remov­ing CO₂ from the atmo­sphere; that they shift the respons­ibly else­where. And there are ques­tions over the eth­ics of many off­set­ting schemes, which have been found to dis­place com­munit­ies, dam­age biod­iversity, and des­troy livelihoods.

Not all trav­el­lers have their eyes shut when it comes to under­stand­ing how their hol­i­days might neg­at­ively impact the envir­on­ment. Many are act­ively redu­cing the num­ber of jour­neys they take each year. And some are sup­port­ing cam­paigns for a fre­quent fly­er levy, or some form of tax­a­tion on the avi­ation sec­tor giv­en that it is cur­rently provided a tax break worth mil­lions each year.

While air­lines and gov­ern­ments wait for the altern­at­ive fuels and tech­no­lo­gies of the future, travel com­pan­ies have not only the oppor­tun­ity, but also the respons­ib­il­ity to lead from the front in the battle against cli­mate change. 

By fol­low­ing a three-step approach of com­mit­ment, edu­ca­tion, and engage­ment, travel com­pan­ies can become a voice of author­ity on cli­mate issues, force real change with­in gov­ern­ments, and cre­ate a more sus­tain­able future for all:

1. Commitment

Con­sumers want to see genu­ine com­mit­ment from organ­isa­tions. One way to do this is for a travel com­pany to make a prom­ise; pub­licly declare the need for change and then lay out the prac­tic­al ways it will effect change. 

An example is Tour­ism Declares, a net­work of industry lead­ers who have made a pub­lic declar­a­tion of a cli­mate emer­gency. In doing so they have developed a 12-month Cli­mate Action Plan includ­ing the pledge to cut emissions. 

Also see Geof­frey Lip­man’s “GT” Insight
“Tour­ism & ‘cli­mate emer­gency’: It’s the met­rics, stupid”

By pub­lish­ing their plans, organ­isa­tions can­not hide behind token­ist­ic changes to make their busi­ness green­er. Instead, they are bound by their pub­lic prom­ises to ensure that fun­da­ment­al changes to their oper­a­tions are implemented. 

Oth­er organ­isa­tions, such as 1% for the Plan­et, work with the travel industry to sup­port envir­on­ment­al NGOs. In this example, com­pan­ies com­mit 1% of their gross sales to sup­port envir­on­ment-sav­ing projects. 

By mak­ing pub­lic declar­a­tions and oper­a­tion­al adapt­a­tions, an organ­isa­tion demon­strates intent that goes bey­ond green mar­ket­ing cam­paigns, and aligns its busi­ness mod­el with a grow­ing seg­ment of socially- and envir­on­ment­ally-respons­ible travellers.

2. Education

While lead­ing by example is a great way to demon­strate strong val­ues and com­mit­ment to change, travel com­pan­ies must also seek to edu­cate their stake­hold­ers to cre­ate advoc­ates for a mind­set shift towards more respons­ible travel.

There are numer­ous art­icles and blog posts cir­cu­lat­ing online to advise trav­el­lers on how to reduce their car­bon foot­print. And non-profits such as WWF are launch­ing envir­on­ment­al foot­print cal­cu­lat­ors to edu­cate individuals. 

Travel com­pan­ies could be doing more. They can be more open and trans­par­ent with con­sumers about how their actions impact the environment. 

Respons­ible Travel is lead­ing the way in edu­cat­ing their cus­tom­ers. They are car­bon-labelling their trips and design­ing hol­i­days of vary­ing car­bon foot­prints so that indi­vidu­als can make informed decisions about the trips they take.

3. Engagement

Next is the need to engage trav­el­lers to help shift atti­tudes and sup­port change.

This is already being demon­strated with­in the industry. Examples include Explore enga­ging its cus­tom­ers to help them keep their prom­ise to make all their trips plastic-free, and The Long Run’s call for ambas­sad­ors to join, engage in dis­cus­sions, and con­trib­ute to the company’s efforts to make travel more sus­tain­able for all. 

By being open and trans­par­ent about their impacts, travel com­pan­ies can work with con­sumers to drive change oper­a­tion­ally, and around broad­er top­ics such as tax­ing air­lines, redu­cing air travel, car­bon off­set­ting, and encour­aging mean­ing­ful trips.

Also see Tan­ner C Knorr’s “GT” Insight
“Cli­mate change, COVID-19, and the need for glob­al sys­tem­ic change”

The time is now

The travel industry has reached a cross­roads. On the one hand, the num­ber of planes in the sky (pre-COV­ID) was dra­mat­ic­ally increas­ing, with an expec­ted 7.2 bil­lion air pas­sen­gers by 2035. On the oth­er hand, there is a grow­ing num­ber of trav­el­lers who are choos­ing not to fly because of the guilt they feel.

How­ever, with whole com­munit­ies and coun­tries rely­ing on tour­ism for their live­li­hoods, we can­not afford for indi­vidu­als to turn their back on inter­na­tion­al travel. 

Instead, travel com­pan­ies must act now to meet their com­mit­ments to travel more con­sciously, and work with their cus­tom­ers to pres­sure legis­lat­ors to enforce tough­er restric­tions, taxes, and pen­al­ties on a highly pol­lut­ing industry.

What do you think? Share a short anec­dote or com­ment below. Or write a deep­er “GT” Insight. The “Good Tour­ism” Blog wel­comes diversity of opin­ion and per­spect­ive about travel & tour­ism because travel & tour­ism is everyone’s business.

Fea­tured image (top of post): Con­trails. How can the travel & tour­ism industry con­tend with cli­mate change? (Image by Free-Pho­tos (CC0) via Pixabay.)

About the author

Francesca Gal­lone is a Master’s stu­dent in Respons­ible Tour­ism at Leeds Beck­ett Uni­ver­sity in the UK, and a pro­gramme man­ager for a school exped­i­tion com­pany. She also writes reg­u­larly.

A self-described “pas­sion­ate voice on cli­mate change and the future of sus­tain­able travel” and an “avid trav­el­ler”, Ms Gal­lone says she is keen to engage with brands that are “help­ing to decar­bon­ise the tour­ism industry and pave the way for sus­tain­able, respons­ible travel”.