Travel industry takes crucial first step toward combating climate change

The travel industry has reached a turning point.

As thousands of scientists, government officials and business leaders met in Glasgow, Scotland, this month for the pivotal United Nations climate conference, hundreds of members of the trillion-dollar tourism industry came together and made the first commitment toward a shared road map to cut carbon emissions in half by 2030 and reach “net zero” by 2050.

More than 300 global travel stakeholders, including tour operators, tourism boards and hotel chains, have signed the Glasgow Declaration on Climate Action in Tourism, requiring them to submit a concrete and transparent plan within 12 months. While the details have yet to be put forward, the companies and countries that signed on, from Germany railway company Deutsche Bahn AG to Panama, will be expected to disclose their carbon emissions and offer clear strategies for how to reduce them.

The process is being spearheaded by the UN World Tourism Organization and the World Travel & Tourism Council, two industry bodies that have previously sparred on climate matters.

“This is undoubtedly the biggest climate commitment our industry has come together for,” said Jeremy Smith, co-founder of Tourism Declares a Climate Emergency, an initiative that supports climate action and provided the framework for the Glasgow Declaration.

“Our initiative launched two years ago because the industry had no collective plan, and we did well getting over 400 tourism organisations on board without funding,” he said. “But the Glasgow Declaration builds on our work. It’s the coming together of major players in our sector, and it’s owned by everyone who has signed it, establishing collective responsibility.”

The travel industry is a large contributor to global carbon emissions, with a footprint estimated between 8% and 11% of total greenhouse gases, according to the World Travel & Tourism Council. Aviation alone represents around 17% of total travel carbon emissions. Each year, a growing number of destinations and communities heavily dependent on tourism — countries like Thailand, India and Madagascar — are hit hard by the effects of climate change, in the form of rising sea levels, drought, wildfires, deforestation and biodiversity loss.

The pandemic spotlighted the adverse effect of industry growth and overtourism on Venice, Italy; Bali, Indonesia; and other popular destinations, forcing some places to take stock and pivot toward more sustainable and environmentally friendly business models. Yet with most operators and destinations reeling from the industry shutdown last year, it is unclear how many of those plans will be prioritised over the need for a fast recovery.

“We need a cultural change, and we need to move beyond the traditional growth-oriented mindsets to see a more sustainable, responsible and climate-neutral tourism ecosystem,” said Patrick Child, deputy director general of environment at the European Commission.

‘A Lot of Apathy’

The declaration has four main targets: measurement, requiring companies to disclose all travel- and tourism-related emissions; decarbonisation, by setting targets aligned with climate science; regeneration, to restore and protect natural ecosystems; and collaboration, to ensure that best practices are shared and financing is available to follow through.

A recent analysis by the World Travel & Tourism Council of 250 travel businesses found that only 42% had publicly announced climate targets, and many of them were not based on the latest science. In early November the council published a road map for different industries within travel, providing concrete guidance on how to reach “net zero” targets by 2050.

“There has been a lot of apathy, with some people not quite sure about what they need to do and how to do it, or some thinking they are not significant enough, and that’s why it’s really important for larger organisations to show the way,” said Darrell Wade, co-founder and chairman of Intrepid Travel, the only global tour company with a climate target verified by the Science Based Targets initiative, which promotes best practices in emissions reductions in line with climate science.

Joining Deutsche Bahn and Panama in signing the Glasgow Declaration are big companies like Accor, Skyscanner, the Travel Corp and Iberostar Group, as well as countries that are already affected by climate change, including Norway and Barbados. Signatories hope that more destinations will participate in the coming weeks.

Throughout his experience in the Tourism Declares a Climate Emergency initiative, Smith found it easier to get smaller, more agile companies and smaller countries involved. When it came to larger companies, there were more barriers and obstacles, he said.

“When you reach a destination, or even a city, it becomes even harder because there are multiple different players with different interests at the scale of a country,” he said. “It takes time.”

Panama, one of only three carbon-negative countries in the world (meaning that it absorbs more carbon emissions than it emits), has taken a lead role in establishing initiatives for economic growth in tourism, which also benefit and preserve local communities and resources.

“Our main plan for our sustainable tourism market is to empower local communities, particularly Indigenous people, so that they can generate an income through tourism that allows them to preserve their ancestral way of life, allowing them to sustainably manage their natural resources like forests and coral reefs,” said Ivan Eskildsen, Panama’s tourism minister.

He pointed to an example of a trail that was built in a national park that was designed to involve local communities in the active management of the area.

“Over 30% of our land and sea are preserved national parks, so it’s humanly impossible to supervise all these areas,” he said. “The community can benefit economically from these areas and will also be prone to stay and take care of it instead of only coming there for short-term income.”

Visit Scotland, that country’s national tourism organisation, which helped draft the declaration, has also taken a lead role. The organisation has reduced its own carbon emission by 74% since 2008, and more than 850 local businesses have been given green tourism awards for their sustainability efforts.

Challenges Persist

While the Glasgow Declaration has garnered great momentum and established common objectives, challenges lie ahead, especially when it comes to setting a global standard for reporting emissions figures for such a wide range of sectors within the industry, from tour operators to destinations, and airlines to cruise ships.

Signatories are expected to hold each other accountable and set common standards throughout international supply chains. Once action plans have been submitted within the next year, a reporting framework will be necessary. Anyone who fails to submit a road map within that time frame will be removed from the declaration.

“It is really important to bring value chains together,” said Catherine Dolton, chief sustainability officer at IHG Hotels and Resorts. “Hotel developers, hotel owners, investors, franchisees, as well as the operators, are all impacting sustainability at different stages of the hotel life cycle.”

Visibly absent from the list of signatories were members of the cruise industry. The sector made a separate pledge to pursue carbon-neutral cruising by 2050 and reduce emissions 40% by 2030 in an annual environmental report published recently by the Cruise Line International Association, an industry trade group. While the report makes detailed commitments to reducing the cruise industry’s carbon footprint using new technology and alternative fuels, it does not address other environmental issues such as discharge of waste.

“Despite technical advances and some surveillance programs, cruising remains a major source of air, water (fresh and marine) and land pollution affecting fragile habitats, areas and species, and a potential source of physical and mental human health risks,” according to a recent report by the Marine Pollution Bulletin Journal.

Though there was some disappointment about the limited participation of some industries in the pledge, the overall sentiment was one of optimism and a belief that the declaration would lead to real change and less “greenwashing,” a term used to describe companies that try to portray themselves as more environmentally minded than they actually are.

“I’ve long been quite pessimistic about travel and tourism’s approach toward climate change,” said Wade of Intrepid Travel, which recently published a toolkit, available online, to help travel businesses measure and reduce their carbon emissions.

“But now I’m really very optimistic because there is broad-level support from the industry to actually reduce emissions, and it’s the first time I’ve seen real concrete commitments from industry and governments.”

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