Industry’s green policies will always be limited

Comment by Jeremy Skidmore (www.jeremyskidmore.com)

Travelmole’s latest question time debate asked ‘how green is the travel industry?’ Clearly, the answer was ‘not very’.

Some of the major tour operators, like First Choice and Thomson, are doing a fair bit, encouraging people to offset their carbon emissions and rating hotels on their green policies.

Lastminute.com is also encouraging travellers to offset their emissions and many of the small, adventure tour operators are working closely with local suppliers to help improve their living environment.

But to many, this is just a token effort. Some firms also have questionable motives and appear to care more about looking good and protecting sales than the environment.

There are also the whole raft of middle-sized operators who don’t seem to have an environmental policy.

Some companies have a ‘sticking plaster’ approach – for example organising parties every night on a beach where there are turtles and then donating a few thousand pounds to conservation of the creatures.

And then there are all-inclusive operators and cruise companies, many of whom do not source local products or encourage people to spend money in resorts benefiting local people.

Every company should be doing as much as they can, from only using low-energy light bulbs to buying more fuel efficient aircraft.

But the truth is that the travel industry’s efforts are only ever going to be a damage limitation exercise because companies specialise in doing things that are patently not green.

David Soskin, the chief executive of Cheapflights, says we should encourage people to fly more, because then airlines would make more money and invest more in fuel-efficient aircraft.

It is an interesting theory, but not one that is shared by most environmental experts. They say we must cut back on flying, full stop. And there’s the rub, because getting the industry to agree to that is like asking turkeys to vote for Christmas.

Furthermore, the British public (including Tony Blair) won’t accept it. For years, we’ve been able to jet around Europe for less than the price of a good meal and now we’re being told it’s wrong.

Research shows that people care about the environment, but only up to a point. They do not want their life to be disrupted and they don’t want to be told they can’t go on holiday.

The other issue is that as a more affluent society, we want higher quality holidays. We demand more leg room on aircraft and our own tailor-made itineraries.

A more environmentally-friendly society would cut back on travel and be prepared to be squashed into airline seats like sardines, to further reduce the number of flights needed and so limit the damage on the environment.

It isn’t going to happen, certainly in the short term.

The only thing that is going to stop people flying is excessively high tax (research shows that Air Passenger Duty would need to be £78 on short-haul flights to put people off) or some cataclysmic world event.

In the meantime, the industry’s damage limitation exercise will continue.