The Co-operative Travel is opposing a third runway at Heathrow as part of a wide-ranging sustainable tourism strategy.
The strategy aims to raise more than £700,000 a year for sustainable travel projects through £1 holidaymakers’ donations, invest £27,000 in to researching overland travel schemes, give free carbon offsets to members and fund solar panels at 18 UK schools.
Launching the strategy, managing director Mike Greenacre criticised the development of new runways, particularly Heathrow’s, as unnecessary and called for technology developments to cut carbon emissions.
The business, which operates more than 400 high-street agencies, is the first major travel retailer to reject plans for Heathrow’s expansion. As part of an analysis on projected airline growth with the Campaign for Better Transport, it found new runways planned at airports conflict with UK targets to cut carbon dioxide emissions by 60% by 2050.
Greenacre fears further traffic gridlock with a new Heathrow runway. “We cannot see any justification for new runways. Any growth in air travel has to be handled by a better joined-up regional strategy. There are opportunities for a better balance between London and regional airports.”
He said The Co-operative Travel could take a hard stance on the environment thanks to its ethics as a co-operative business and would not contradict its aim to boost profit.
“We don’t have hard-pressed shareholders breathing down our necks demanding every bit of profit,” he said.
About 20% of the business’s customers do not use air travel and book domestic holidays or other forms of transport instead, such as trains.
“There are opportunities with trains, in particular longer term,” he said, but stressed this was just the start of the group’s campaign to support responsible and sustainable tourism.