Travel industry takes collective climate change action

ABTA and the Association of Independent Tour Operators, with support from independent agency groups Advantage and Worldchoice, are promoting a scheme to reduce carbon emissions.

The travel industry climate programme called Reduce My Footprint is launched today (Friday).

It will offer businesses and consumers “advice, information and encouragement” on how to reduce carbon emissions as well as a means of offsetting the balance as well as improving the benefits of tourism in destinations, according to ABTA.

The initiative, operated by Carbon Offsets, has a carbon calculator, which works out carbon emissions for flights, car use and domestic/office energy use. With this users can understand their carbon footprint and how much it would cost to offset.

Businesses and consumers can then choose how much they wish to contribute towards offsetting and destination projects.

There are two options for how travel companies can get involved:

* Direct customers to a Reduce My Footprint website so they can calculate their carbon emissions and manage their own contributions.

* Have your own company programme that collects the funds through your systems and forwards them to Reduce My Footprint each month. This includes the possibility of your own RMF web pages and choosing your own mix of offset projects.

Funds raised will be used for a range of schemes.

From every £1 spent on projects: 50p will be invested in Government approved schemes – or Certified Emission Reductions (CERs), that have been certified under the Kyoto Protocol. The current CER project is a wind farm project in India, which provides power to the local grid without using fossil fuels.

Thirty pence goes to the Travel Foundation charity which helps the outbound travel industry manage tourism more sustainably.

Contributions from Reduce My Footprint will be divided between: Energy reduction programmes in tourism destinations in the UK and overseas, including solar power in Maasai Villages in Kenya, and renewable energy through the installation of a wind farm in Tamil Nadu, southern India, generating funds for sustainable development in the local community.  

Twenty pence goes to Verified Emission Reduction projects.

These projects are not certified but rely on independent, reputable organisations to approve them.

The current project, audited by KPMG is the ‘Basa Magogo’ project in South Africa which gives low-income families information on how to make more fuel efficient fires for cooking, which also reduces carbon emissions.                   

Companies can also channel funds to projects of their choosing.                             

A Reduce My Footprint supervisory board will oversee administration charges, which are expected to be less than 20%.

Jonathon Porritt, founder director of Forum for the Future, said: “It’s great that the travel industry is helping its customers to seriously think about their impacts when they go on holiday.  

“Holidays mean so much to people, and are such an important part of our overall quality of life – which makes it all the more important to reduce any negative impacts taking a holiday might have. 

“Reduce My Footprint is a good starting point for tourists who want to understand the issues, particularly climate change, and start to do something about them.”

Supervisory board member Keith Richards, ABTA’s head of business development and consumer affairs, said: “Signing up to Reduce My Footprint shows your leadership in addressing the climate impact of travel.

“It helps to differentiate your business by offering a real opportunity for customers to do something personally and it gives you information and advice to help stay ahead of the game while protecting destinations for the future.”

by Phil Davies