Can a holiday be responsible if you need to fly to get there?
Justin Francis, New Consumer Magazine Jul/Aug 2006 issue
While responsible holidays are attracting increasing attention, is it responsible to book one if you need to fly to the holiday destination? Justin Francis from on-line travel agent responsibletravel.com tries to square the circle of responsible travel, aviation and carbon emissions.
Kick off your shoes and lie back in your hammock in an exotic eco-lodge safe in the knowledge that your holiday is helping to support the families of your local guide and food producers from the local community, and contributing funds to turtle conservation and operating entirely from solar power.
How about setting out on a walking safari in Kenya with a charismatic Maasai guide who knows the Latin names of all the plants - as well as their uses in traditional Maasai medicine - and who’ll teach you how to track wildlife on his private lands? He’ll earn an income, and you’ll learn about Maasai culture and village life.
Responsible travel is an appealing concept, not least because travelers can get closer to nature and local cultures. Re-inventing tourism to re-connect tourists with local cultures and environments in a meaningful and mutually beneficial way means that responsible tourism is more rewarding for local people, and also for travelers seeking more authentic experiences.
That being said responsible travelers are increasingly wondering whether the negative impacts resulting from the global warming associated with the carbon emissions of their flight outweigh the positive impacts of their holiday in destinations. Should the responsible traveler put away the world map and resign themselves to rainy holidays in the UK or Europe by rail?
Asking people to abandon their overseas holidays is a tough ask, and certainly a greater test of eco-commitment than buying fair trade tea or switching off your TV at the mains. But will the world be a better and lower carbon place if we all stayed at home?
Firstly, let’s examine what would happen if we all (miraculously) stopped flying altogether. Despite air travel becoming something of a cause célèbre for global warming campaigners air travel (including business, air freight and military flights) accounts for just 3% of total carbon dioxide emissions. By comparison domestic emissions make up 25% of the UK’s total emissions.
However emitting carbon dioxide at altitude is more damaging than at ground level, and flying is the fastest growing contributor to global warming. Stopping flying altogether would of course reduce emissions, which is what we must do, but it is only a small part of our global carbon problem.
Abandoning overseas holidays altogether would reduce carbon dioxide emissions but also significantly damage both development and conservation, particularly in developing countries, which in turn has consequences for global warming.
In making an argument for responsible tourism I’m not attempting to claim that through conservation and development supported by tourism in destinations we can offset the carbon emissions of the flight to get there (although by our calculations at least some holidays do). Rather I’m arguing that we need to carefully consider the overall impact of our flight and the holiday.
UK tourists spend £3bn a year on holidays in developing countries - which is the fastest growing sector of the market. This is not much less than the UK government’s entire development budget. The tourism industry has a higher potential for linkages with local enterprises - such as craft sellers, local guides and restaurants, taxi drivers, local food producers and fishermen – than any sector apart from agriculture. This means that the benefit of this £3bn can potentially be spread widely to benefit local people in need.
Tourism is also particularly labour intensive, again only agriculture among major industries is more so, which means it’s a very significant employer (in fact the world’s largest). Unusually it’s also particularly suitable for the economically marginalized, including women, because it can be built from the assets of local people such as their traditions, festivals, land and natural and built heritage.
As a result tourism is the principal export for 30% of developing countries, and well suited to poverty reduction. In eleven of the world’s twelve poorest countries tourism is significant and growing.
While domestic tourism should not be ignored, without international tourism many of the world’s poorest countries would lose one of the few industries in which they could be world leaders in, and an industry in which the truly poor can participate in and benefit from.
While it’s easier to make the case for the benefits of responsible tourism in developing countries we can look closer to home where many UK and European farming communities, custodians of vast areas of our lands, depend on tourism through farmstays, B&B’s and agritourism to be economically viable. As our populations move to urban areas rural communities and ways of life are under threat. Responsible tourism is one way of celebrating these cultures and sustaining them.
Finally, many of the world’s conservation programmes would collapse without tourism revenues. Governments in developing countries with severe health and education issues simply cannot afford the vast sums of money required to protect Parks, mostly for the benefit of Western visitors, without significant income from international tourism.
The most pressing need in global conservation is to improve the lives of communities living around protected areas so that they can live more harmoniously with their environments. While tourism alone cannot solve all development needs its vital that communities derive some economic benefits from Parks and Protected Areas through activities such as responsible tourism if they are to conserve them.
Without this income the conflicts between communities and conservationists over access to water, firewood and grazing; and issues around deforestation, compensation due to loss of life and crops due to marauding animals, and snaring of game for food will continue to increase.
While the majority of community income is from providing services to the established tourism industry communities frustrated by lack of access to tourists have increasingly responded by creating their own tourism enterprises – known collectively as community based tourism – and inviting tourists to spend time with them in their villages.
These worldwide community tourism ventures are unfortunately one of the best-kept secrets in tourism. So difficult do they find marketing that many are failing to attract sufficient tourists to be viable. US based charity Conservation International (www.conservation.org) and my company, responsibletravel.com, are now working together to create a database of these community tourism ventures, and to draw them to the attention of the wider tourism industry.
However, the benefits of responsible tourism need to be carefully weighed against the potentially devastating consequences of global warming (to which holiday flights contribute) to both wildlife and communities. Unsurprisingly calculating the net carbon impact of every holiday and flight is fiendishly difficult.
For example in funding the conservation of forests and woodland in Parks, and creating a commercial rationale for them to be preserved, responsible tourism helps sustains many of the world’s forests, which in turn absorb carbon dioxide (the planet has always created vast quantities of carbon dioxide, which our forests and the algae in our oceans have been able to effectively deal with until we eroded their ability to do so and increased carbon emissions dramatically).
So we might reduce emissions by stopping flying, but we’d lose some of the world’s carbon dioxide absorbing forests as a result. Likewise communities around the world are using tourism incomes for environmental education, and for example in cleaner technologies including combustion wood burning stoves that can each save at least half a tonne of wood a year equating to approximately 10 tonnes of carbon dioxide over their lives.*
My advice to the passionate traveller who is loathe to give up their holidays involving flights, and concerned about carbon emissions is as follows. They must accept that they must fly less in total. They should cut down on short breaks, as take off and landing accounts for a high percentage of total emissions, and work hard to reduce their household and office emissions.
They should ensure their holiday provides clear benefits to local communities and conservation, and offset the carbon emissions of their flights using companies like Climate Care. While very few activities on the planet can be undertaken with a completely clear conscience in this way you can relax a little more easily in that hammock in your eco-lodge.
Managing your emissions to ‘afford’ a holiday to Egypt
This simple calculation shows how much CO2 we would need to offset against a flight to Egypt for our annual holiday (figures are per person); The carbon emission of a return flight to Egypt is 770kg. If we were to cut our household emissions by 10% by doing simple things like showering for 9 minutes instead of 10, only filling up our kettle half full, using public transport instead of the car every 11th journey, turning down our thermostat, etc we would save 360kg of carbon per person a year (based on UK average). If we were to cut back on short breaks (in this example a short break to Prague and a business trip to Rome), and just have one longer holiday - we would save a further 580kgs a year.
Summary;
Links:
Calculate your emissions: http://www.climatecare.org/
http://ch4.org.uk/data/resources/File/CH4-AuditForm1.pdf
*Figures taken from Socio Adventures and Climate Care. See:
http://www.treeswaterpeople.org/stoves/stoves.htm
http://www.climatecare.org/responsibletravel/index.cfm?content_id=33C30566-0DE1-42F6-B012AB82CC31A223
While responsible holidays are attracting increasing attention, is it responsible to book one if you need to fly to the holiday destination? Justin Francis from on-line travel agent responsibletravel.com tries to square the circle of responsible travel, aviation and carbon emissions. Kick off your shoes and lie back in your hammock in an exotic eco-lodge safe in the knowledge that your holiday is helping to support the families of your local guide and food producers from the local community, and contributing funds to turtle conservation and operating entirely from solar power.
How about setting out on a walking safari in Kenya with a charismatic Maasai guide who knows the Latin names of all the plants - as well as their uses in traditional Maasai medicine - and who’ll teach you how to track wildlife on his private lands? He’ll earn an income, and you’ll learn about Maasai culture and village life.
Responsible travel is an appealing concept, not least because travelers can get closer to nature and local cultures. Re-inventing tourism to re-connect tourists with local cultures and environments in a meaningful and mutually beneficial way means that responsible tourism is more rewarding for local people, and also for travelers seeking more authentic experiences.
That being said responsible travelers are increasingly wondering whether the negative impacts resulting from the global warming associated with the carbon emissions of their flight outweigh the positive impacts of their holiday in destinations. Should the responsible traveler put away the world map and resign themselves to rainy holidays in the UK or Europe by rail?
Asking people to abandon their overseas holidays is a tough ask, and certainly a greater test of eco-commitment than buying fair trade tea or switching off your TV at the mains. But will the world be a better and lower carbon place if we all stayed at home?
Firstly, let’s examine what would happen if we all (miraculously) stopped flying altogether. Despite air travel becoming something of a cause célèbre for global warming campaigners air travel (including business, air freight and military flights) accounts for just 3% of total carbon dioxide emissions. By comparison domestic emissions make up 25% of the UK’s total emissions.
However emitting carbon dioxide at altitude is more damaging than at ground level, and flying is the fastest growing contributor to global warming. Stopping flying altogether would of course reduce emissions, which is what we must do, but it is only a small part of our global carbon problem.
Abandoning overseas holidays altogether would reduce carbon dioxide emissions but also significantly damage both development and conservation, particularly in developing countries, which in turn has consequences for global warming.
In making an argument for responsible tourism I’m not attempting to claim that through conservation and development supported by tourism in destinations we can offset the carbon emissions of the flight to get there (although by our calculations at least some holidays do). Rather I’m arguing that we need to carefully consider the overall impact of our flight and the holiday.
UK tourists spend £3bn a year on holidays in developing countries - which is the fastest growing sector of the market. This is not much less than the UK government’s entire development budget. The tourism industry has a higher potential for linkages with local enterprises - such as craft sellers, local guides and restaurants, taxi drivers, local food producers and fishermen – than any sector apart from agriculture. This means that the benefit of this £3bn can potentially be spread widely to benefit local people in need.
Tourism is also particularly labour intensive, again only agriculture among major industries is more so, which means it’s a very significant employer (in fact the world’s largest). Unusually it’s also particularly suitable for the economically marginalized, including women, because it can be built from the assets of local people such as their traditions, festivals, land and natural and built heritage.
As a result tourism is the principal export for 30% of developing countries, and well suited to poverty reduction. In eleven of the world’s twelve poorest countries tourism is significant and growing.
While domestic tourism should not be ignored, without international tourism many of the world’s poorest countries would lose one of the few industries in which they could be world leaders in, and an industry in which the truly poor can participate in and benefit from.
While it’s easier to make the case for the benefits of responsible tourism in developing countries we can look closer to home where many UK and European farming communities, custodians of vast areas of our lands, depend on tourism through farmstays, B&B’s and agritourism to be economically viable. As our populations move to urban areas rural communities and ways of life are under threat. Responsible tourism is one way of celebrating these cultures and sustaining them.
Finally, many of the world’s conservation programmes would collapse without tourism revenues. Governments in developing countries with severe health and education issues simply cannot afford the vast sums of money required to protect Parks, mostly for the benefit of Western visitors, without significant income from international tourism.
The most pressing need in global conservation is to improve the lives of communities living around protected areas so that they can live more harmoniously with their environments. While tourism alone cannot solve all development needs its vital that communities derive some economic benefits from Parks and Protected Areas through activities such as responsible tourism if they are to conserve them.
Without this income the conflicts between communities and conservationists over access to water, firewood and grazing; and issues around deforestation, compensation due to loss of life and crops due to marauding animals, and snaring of game for food will continue to increase.
While the majority of community income is from providing services to the established tourism industry communities frustrated by lack of access to tourists have increasingly responded by creating their own tourism enterprises – known collectively as community based tourism – and inviting tourists to spend time with them in their villages.
These worldwide community tourism ventures are unfortunately one of the best-kept secrets in tourism. So difficult do they find marketing that many are failing to attract sufficient tourists to be viable. US based charity Conservation International (www.conservation.org) and my company, responsibletravel.com, are now working together to create a database of these community tourism ventures, and to draw them to the attention of the wider tourism industry.
However, the benefits of responsible tourism need to be carefully weighed against the potentially devastating consequences of global warming (to which holiday flights contribute) to both wildlife and communities. Unsurprisingly calculating the net carbon impact of every holiday and flight is fiendishly difficult.
For example in funding the conservation of forests and woodland in Parks, and creating a commercial rationale for them to be preserved, responsible tourism helps sustains many of the world’s forests, which in turn absorb carbon dioxide (the planet has always created vast quantities of carbon dioxide, which our forests and the algae in our oceans have been able to effectively deal with until we eroded their ability to do so and increased carbon emissions dramatically).
So we might reduce emissions by stopping flying, but we’d lose some of the world’s carbon dioxide absorbing forests as a result. Likewise communities around the world are using tourism incomes for environmental education, and for example in cleaner technologies including combustion wood burning stoves that can each save at least half a tonne of wood a year equating to approximately 10 tonnes of carbon dioxide over their lives.*
My advice to the passionate traveller who is loathe to give up their holidays involving flights, and concerned about carbon emissions is as follows. They must accept that they must fly less in total. They should cut down on short breaks, as take off and landing accounts for a high percentage of total emissions, and work hard to reduce their household and office emissions.
They should ensure their holiday provides clear benefits to local communities and conservation, and offset the carbon emissions of their flights using companies like Climate Care. While very few activities on the planet can be undertaken with a completely clear conscience in this way you can relax a little more easily in that hammock in your eco-lodge.
Managing your emissions to ‘afford’ a holiday to Egypt
This simple calculation shows how much CO2 we would need to offset against a flight to Egypt for our annual holiday (figures are per person); The carbon emission of a return flight to Egypt is 770kg. If we were to cut our household emissions by 10% by doing simple things like showering for 9 minutes instead of 10, only filling up our kettle half full, using public transport instead of the car every 11th journey, turning down our thermostat, etc we would save 360kg of carbon per person a year (based on UK average). If we were to cut back on short breaks (in this example a short break to Prague and a business trip to Rome), and just have one longer holiday - we would save a further 580kgs a year.
Summary;
| Carbon emissions of a flight to Egypt (6990 km): | 770kg |
| Minus carbon emissions of short break to Rome: | -310kg |
| Minus carbon emissions of short break to Prague: | -220kg |
| Minus saving 10% of household emissions: | -360kg |
| Net carbon dioxide saving: | -120kg |
Links:
Calculate your emissions: http://www.climatecare.org/
http://ch4.org.uk/data/resources/File/CH4-AuditForm1.pdf
*Figures taken from Socio Adventures and Climate Care. See:
http://www.treeswaterpeople.org/stoves/stoves.htm
http://www.climatecare.org/responsibletravel/index.cfm?content_id=33C30566-0DE1-42F6-B012AB82CC31A223
Interested? Search our site, find out how to 'afford' your emissions or try an ' I don't want to fly' holiday.