In responding to the climate crisis, companies have committed to a wide range of
ambitious sustainability goals. The need to cut carbon emissions is a very real
and urgent need; so, on paper the claims to be “carbon neutral” and “net zero”
outline the ideal situation.
However, the reality behind those buzzwords may be little more than
greenwashing
— especially since many companies have turned to dubious carbon-offset
schemes
to achieve their goals. This is as true in the tourism industry as anywhere
else: According to the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC)’s Net-Zero
Roadmap for Travel &
Tourism,
74 percent of travel and tourism businesses use carbon
offsetting
as part of their climate-action strategies.
But let’s be real: The drawdown solutions for an industry currently creating
8-11 percent of the world’s carbon emissions
(WTTC)
won’t be found by passing responsibility off to others. However, it could
potentially manifest from the hard work, creative thinking and investment by
companies embarking on radical experimentation to see what it truly takes to hit
“zero” and be “neutral.”
“We asked ourselves, what might a trip look like today that could potentially be
the future as a whole, across every single trip that we run? We set this very
ambitious target: How low can we go now?” said Paul
Easto, founder of UK-based
Wilderness Group — which is committed to
reducing its carbon emissions by 90 percent by 2030.
To test that question, Easto and his team set out to design and deliver a trip
that created as close to no carbon as possible. They deliberated carefully over
all elements of a three-day, four-person trip — which incorporated train travel,
electric vehicles, off-grid accommodations, low-carbon food options and
human-powered activities — while not worrying about the commerciality of it.
Ultimately, Easto said, the trip trimmed off approximately 60 percent of the
carbon footprint typically generated by a Wilderness Group trip — which, at
140kg to 150kg carbon equivalent per guest per trip, is already quite low
compared to industry standards.
Similarly, the team at Colorado-based Natural Habitat
Adventures (Nat Hab) — which has invested in a
wide range of sustainability and conservation initiatives — has also embraced
audacious challenges as part of its learning journey. In 2019, the company ran a
zero-waste trip in Yellowstone National
Park — where it found
managing food waste to be the biggest challenge. Building on what it learned
during that experiment, Nat Hab rolled out waste-management practices across its
portfolio. It has been most successful on those trips where the team has the
most local control and can visit on-the-ground facilities in advance, such as
those hosted in the US National Parks.
“Recycling is amongst the biggest challenges,” Nat Hab Chief Sustainability
Officer Court Whelan
said. “I think it’s because the mentality of people is ‘Oh, this trash goes in
the recycling; so, it’s sustainable.’ But it goes a lot deeper than that.
Obviously in progressive places, there are some great recycling programs; but
that’s not the case in a lot of places.”
Importantly, Whelan emphasized that prior to recycling even coming into play, it
is essential to consider all opportunities for refusing and reducing anything
that could potentially become waste in the first place — which Nat Hab did on
its zero-waste trip.
“This is a valuable lesson — it’s super important — but it gets very
overwhelming, because you have to go through everything with a fine-toothed
comb,” he said, to ensure potential waste never even makes an appearance in the
trip experience.
This highlights one of the most challenging aspects of scaling these extreme
sustainability experiments in tourism: Despite the success of and lessons
derived from these highly controlled experiences, a single trip touches dozens
of suppliers — all of which are in different places on their own sustainability
journeys.
“There are three core elements to experiences that govern how much carbon is
consumed on any one trip: transportation, accommodation and food,” Easto said.
He said that, while service providers can control transportation and food
choices, low-carbon accommodation options are far more limited — pointing to the
challenge of addressing Scope 3
emissions.
“100 percent, the biggest challenge is our supply chain and working with
suppliers to reduce emissions,” he said. “We can influence and try to shape and
encourage; but it’s ultimately up to businesses to make that decision.”
This can be a particularly hard ask for small businesses — especially, those
still trying to rebound from the pandemic.
According to Whelan, the supplier touchpoint offering the greatest opportunity
for improvement are picnic meals: “This is partly because of how easy it is to
be sustainable and how substantial it is when you go the ‘easy,’ unsustainable
route,” he said.
Boxed lunches filled with individually wrapped items (many of which aren’t
eaten) can be replaced with what Whelan calls a “deconstructed” picnic lunch — a
scaled-back meal presented buffet-style that satiates hunger without giving into
the hospitality expectation of overabundance.
While these experiments offer bountiful lessons, both Easto and Whelan note that
perfection was never the goal — only the conversation starter. At Nat Hab, this
meant moving away from implementing the zero-waste goal one trip at a time and
incorporating manageable waste-reduction actions across all offerings.
“Rather than have 40 people each year do zero waste perfectly, let’s have 4,000
or 40,000,” Whelan said. “Let’s teach other companies to do zero waste
imperfectly. We don’t need anyone to do it perfectly to change the world; we
just need double-digit percentages from a heck of a lot of buy-in.”
Both Wilderness Group and Nat Hab are transparent about measuring and reporting
on their environmental impact, which is reported on their websites.
Additionally, both companies openly discuss their experiences and lessons
learned with others across the industry.
“If you can see what is possible, then you can start to imagine how you would
replicate this across the business,” Easto said. “This is extremely challenging;
and I think the only way we’re going to get to where we all want to be is
through collaboration and sharing those things that work.”
Get the latest insights, trends, and innovations to help position yourself at the forefront of sustainable business leadership—delivered straight to your inbox.
JoAnna Haugen is a writer, speaker and solutions advocate who has worked in the travel and tourism industry for her entire career. She is also the founder of Rooted — a solutions platform at the intersection of sustainable tourism, social impact and storytelling. A returned US Peace Corps volunteer, international election observer and intrepid traveler, JoAnna helps tourism professionals decolonize travel and support sustainability using strategic communication skills.
Published Feb 20, 2024 2pm EST / 11am PST / 7pm GMT / 8pm CET