Photo credit: Shivani Mandalia, London Southend airport.
As both the UK and EU work to achieve their 2050 net-zero emissions target, sustainable travel is becoming a trending topic with more people keen on green tourism.
The EU Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) is encouraging passengers to make sustainable transport decisions by working to implement a system whereby aeroplane passengers are shown the amount of carbon they are accountable for emitting.
Vicky Smith is the founder of responsible tourism website Earth Changers and says, “Covid has given the sustainable tourism sector about a five year fast forward.”
This is because the pandemic has meant that people have been “forced to explore and discover their local areas, they’ve also reconnected with the importance of nature,” she says.
Photo credit: Vicky Smith. Vicky has worked in sustainable tourism since the mid-2000s and is pictured here on a boat in Tortuguero National Park in Costa Rica.
With the lockdown restricting travel, many Brits have turned to staycations. Data collected by holidaycottages.co.uk found that 4 out of 5 people in the UK have planned a staycation for 2021.
While swapping a holiday abroad for something closer to home will likely leave a smaller carbon footprint in terms of transport, Vicky says cutting out aviation doesn’t make a holiday sustainable.
“The whole carbon footprint of tourism is 8%. Aviation within that is about 3.5%... [so] even if nobody flew anywhere in the world, staycations are still going to represent 4.5% of carbon emissions,” explains Vicky.
Photo credit: Vicky Smith. Vicky on the banks of the Tsiribihina river in Madagascar befriending a semi-domesticated lemur.
When booking a sustainable holiday Vicky says education and research are key because “tourism itself isn’t one thing, it’s made up of a lot of different services," so things like accommodation and sightseeing also need to be planned with sustainability at the forefront.
EASA hopes that by 2022 low carbon flights can also be given an eco-seal to help consumers make eco-friendly travel decisions.
Comments