Travel and Your Carbon Footprint: 3 Ways to Limit Your Impact

Recent surveys show that consumers around the world are already making more ecologically mindful decisions when travelling, such as visiting local cultural or historical sites (46%), using more environmentally friendly transportation options (43%), and traveling to smaller, lesser-known destinations (41%), [SOURCE: https://advertising.expedia.com/blog/sustainability/sustainable-travel-study/]

Although 9 in 10 consumers said they look for sustainable options when traveling, 70% reported feeling overwhelmed by starting the process of being a more sustainable traveler. Many tourists are unsure how to be a more sustainable and eco-friendly tourist when presented with so many alternatives with conflicting evidence for effectiveness, or are simply worried about paying over the odds to become one.

Fortunately, the travel industry has thought hard about these issues and have forged a number of simple recommendations for reducing your individual travel footprint without breaking the bank.

Regenerative Travel

Regenerative travel means you're not just visiting a place and taking something away — you're leaving a place better than you found it before. There are a few ways to do this: you could find a destination where visitors plant trees. Or you might want to eat at a destination with a menu that relies on local ingredients (which have a lower carbon footprint than produce sourced from thousands of miles away). Another simple option is to carry your own mug, flask or water bottle to be refilled throughout your trip, instead of buying single-use plastic bottles at the local grocery store or petrol station. Another option is offering help on a sustainability project in the location you're staying - this is particularly suitable for those planning on staying for at least a few weeks and with a few days to spare. With companies like Workaway, you can offer to help out on projects as varied as ecofarm maintenance to beach conservation. If you have decided to take a tour, make sure to choose a local, eco-friendly tour company. Finally, you might want to look into the most sustainable vehicle options while on your journey, whether that be renting an electric car, or choosing public transport or walking wherever possible.

Offsetting Your Carbon Footprint

Some ticket booking sites like Google Flights and Skyscanner surface the amount of carbon your flight will emit, recognising that some fliers will want to pick the most sustainable route they can. iOffset, along with a variety of flight carbon calculator API offerings, offer the ability to measure and offset your individual flight carbon impact, and to select a variety of high-quality and transparent carbon offset projects to do so. Until carbon-neutral air travel is possible, which is likely years if not decades from becoming a reality with the labouring rollout of flight emissions neutralisation initiatives such as Sustainable Aviation Fuels (SAF), consumers can make small choices to limit their individual impact by choosing to offset.

'Leave No Trace' in Natural Spaces

Hikers and the National Park Service have a saying: "leave no trace." It's about enjoying nature on your hike or camping trip, and maintaining that destination's same sanctity over time. To reduce your travel's impact on nature as much as possible, for example, consider whether you are picking up all your trash and taking it out of the woods with you, or whether you are altering or destroying any plant or animal species' habitats in any way, no matter how small. Don't approach or feed wildlife, leave plants, structures and artefacts exactly how you found them, and manage your campfire or lodging well so that they do not leave a mark. Other ways to leave no trace include using a limited amount of biodegradable dish soap when you're washing those pots and pans from your campfire dinner. When dumping out the dirty dishwater, too, spread it out as much as possible to limit its impact. Although in the grand scheme of things these actions will have little impact on the global climate crisis, it is nevertheless important to be as mindful as possible as the travel and accommodation industries have played a part in causing damage to wild tourism locations, which, when accumulated, has greater ramifications for the species and carbon sequestering potential of the land.