Initiative: Climate Change and Youth Travel

Responsible Travel Toolkit: Step-by-Step Suggestions in Promotion Environmental Responsibility to Customers

Putting a Cost on Carbon

To provide carbon offsetting as an option for their customers, most organisations install a carbon calculator offering offset purchase options on their website. Travellers can then input their travel destinations on the carbon calculator; the calculator redirects the user to the offsetting partner’s website for CO2 footprint estimates, and for offset purchase.

Publicising the environmental costs associated with travel activities helps youth travellers make more responsible decisions while on their trips. Gradually, youth travellers will begin to envision an environmental price tag associated with actions like leaving the air conditioning on in their rooms during their trips, or using a taxi instead of taking a public bus.

Get youth travellers engaged by putting a price on carbon. The Wall Street Journal, for example, published a useful guide on “The Cost of Offsetting Your Vacation”, which helped put a carbon cost on trip activities like “A Scenic Drive”, or “An Afternoon on a Jet Ski”.


Communicating the Value of Reducing CO2 Emissions

Environmentally responsible travel habits do not end with flights alone. During their trips, youth travellers are faced with everyday choices that can have a large impact on reducing emissions. By publicising a few emissions-saving tips, members of the WYSE Travel Confederation can encourage environmentally responsible travel habits for millions of youth travellers.

And small, incremental efforts do add up.

Check out the Travel Foundation’s estimations on carbon emissions and how these equate to daily activities.

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How Carbon is Generated and How It Can Be Reduced

Ten tonnes of CO2 is generated by:

30,000 miles in an average petrol car 82,000 miles personal travel in a bus Running 86 PCs for a year Annual average domestic energy consumption for 9 residents of England 14 long haul air trips or 110 short haul trips 100,000 miles on a train A large cruise ship cruising for fifteen minutes.

This amount can be saved by:

100 offices switching off non-essential equipment for one night 10-20 households turning down central heating by 1 degree over a year 50 households replacing traditional light bulbs with energy-efficient ones 50-100 holidaymakers who already choose not to use a car whilst on holiday

In your office:

A PC monitor left on overnight wastes enough energy to laser print 800 A4 copies. A PC monitor switched off overnight (instead of leaving it on standby) saves enough energy to microwave six dinners. A photocopier left on overnight uses enough energy to produce over 1500 copies. Lighting an office overnight wastes enough energy to heat water for 1000 cups of tea. A typical window left open overnight in winter will waste enough energy to drive a small car over 35 miles. Leaving a computer on 24/7 costs four times more than if you switch it off at night and weekends. Substantial savings are possible through efficient air conditioning.

Relating carbon to flying:

A 747 jumbo jet flying to Miami and back from London will emit 550 tonnes of CO2. A 10,000 km overall return flight (Manchester to Boston) for one person is about 1 tonne of CO2.

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Providing Information

How does an organisation begin promoting environmentally responsible travel? The first step is to educate your market. There is a wealth of information available about how to travel responsibly, and many non-profit organisations gladly give this information for free or for a nominal fee.

Many young travellers would adopt responsible travel practices if they were aware of them, and if they were conscious of the potential positive effects.

To assist in this educational effort, the Travel Foundation (a non-profit organisation that specialises in helping the travel industry take effective action on sustainable tourism) provides free print and digital documents, training module DVDs, and interactive training courses for staff and managers. Ask permission to link to these documents on the web, send them to customers as part of a “customer packet”, or distribute them as communications tools to staff.

The Travel Foundation’s resources detail everything from electricity conservation while on holiday, to using sustainability to give businesses a competitive edge. Their brochures are geared to both the travel industry and travellers, and they even have guides specifically targeting the 18-30 year old traveller.

Additional valuable tools include booklets and guides from Greenpeace and The Seattle Times, which teach young travellers how to be more energy efficient on their travels, and in their daily lives. Ask for permission to reprint or link to these materials on the web, or develop a company-branded guide.

Building Communities on the Web

Develop marketing programmes that will generate increased word-of-mouth. Some examples include creating viral marketing campaigns on the web, setting up a blog where customers can share their best responsible travel tips, or asking youth travellers to nominate their favourite green destinations. By creating a community through viral marketing techniques, companies not only increase environmental awareness and discussion, they foster a community around their organisation—which could potentially increase customer loyalty.

Promoting Sustainable Travel

Interested in actively promoting environmentally responsible activities, trips, or tourist destinations? Use the Travel Foundation’s “Guide on developing a sustainable excursion”, or publish directory information on businesses that have sustainable business practices. This practice gives added value to an organisation, and increased service offerings to youth travellers.

For inspiration in developing sustainable excursions, read the United Nations World Tourism Organization’s Global Code of Ethics for Tourism. It provides a framework for further development of a tourist industry that benefits local economies, minimises environmental impacts, and promotes global peace and understanding.

Branding Giveaway Items

Looking for a free gift idea? Provide copies of responsible travel books, like the Lonely Planet’s Code Green: Experiences of a lifetime. Code Green is a compendium of responsible travel stories, which inspire and teach young travellers the importance of environmental responsibility, and cultural respect.

Place a small sticker with the organisation’s name on the front of the giveaway item, indicating the gift’s sponsorship. Not only will the organisation be investing in a sustainable giveaway item that won’t be thrown away, it will also be aligning the organisational identity with environmentally responsible travel.

Leading by Example, and Publicising It

Communicating responsible practices to customers is beneficial on many fronts: it educates youth travellers, it gives a sense of organisational pride to employees, and studies show that responsible organisations are more attractive to youth travellers.

Organisations should use their websites to promote their responsible practices. Detail sustainable practices on the “About Us” page, publish a simple but clear “We’re Carbon Neutral” designation at the top of the page, devote full sections to exploring the issues, or completely develop it as part of the organisation’s brand identity. The first step in promoting the importance of responsible travel is to talk about the issues; the web is the perfect place to do it, at a minimal cost.

Organisations that fully embrace environmentally responsible travel as part of their organisational identity may consider putting together a climate change glossary on their website. This not only helps to explain the issues to unaware customers, but demonstrates the organisation’s environmental awareness to its customer base. The Pew Center on Global Climate Change hosts an extensive glossary of climate change terms on their website, and is a great example.

Becoming a Carbon Neutral Organisation

Organisations that wish to lead by example may choose to take their responsible practices to the next step: reducing their organisation’s carbon footprint or making their office carbon neutral.

Several resources are available on the web to help reduce one’s carbon footprint, and some companies will work one-on-one with an organisation to calculate its emissions. On-site consultants can also assist with recommending potential efficiencies.

Once an organisation has gained a reputation as a carbon neutral organisation, it should make sure to tell its customers about it! Companies that adopt responsible practices can help influence their customer’s own behaviour, and can potentially increase the customer’s loyalty to the business.