News

Explore Worldwide calls for consistent industry-wide carbon methodology

Explore Worldwide is working with accommodation providers to more precisely measure their emissions to improve accuracy year-on-year.

The initiative come despite the average carbon footprint of the hotels the company uses being 14% below the national average.

The adventure operator has also made changes across its programme, including reviewing all flights within trip itineraries, replacing a long bus journey with an overnight train in Laos, and removing internal flights in Pakistan and Azores itineraries. 

The alterations come as the company called for an industry standard is established to ensure consistency throughout the industry and ease of comparison for consumers. 

Explore has already published its methodology and shared learnings with other companies wanting to do the same thing, such as Inntravel.

The operator completed the first round of carbon labelling 18 months ago as research at the time showed that 76% of consumers felt there should be more transparency when it came to the environmental impact of holidays and travel.  

Explore has been calling on the industry to declare the carbon footprint of all trips.

Managing director Michael Edwards said: “Where an experience or accommodation has turned out to have a lower carbon rating than we expected, we’ve worked out why, and how we can use it as a blueprint for the future. 

“Where the opposite has happened, and a part of the trip has an especially high carbon rating, we’ve looked at alternatives or, better still, we’ve worked with our suppliers to find ways to bring those ratings down. 

“That’s beneficial to us, to our customers, and also to those suppliers, who are able to shout about their own successes, and know they’re doing the right thing.”

Many suppliers are now moving away from traditional “avoidance-based” offsetting, towards carbon removal. 

Earlier this year, Explore announced a new partnership with Klimate, which selects and manages a portfolio of projects that actively remove carbon from the environment.

Share article

View Comments

Jacobs Media is honoured to be the recipient of the 2020 Queen's Award for Enterprise.

The highest official awards for UK businesses since being established by royal warrant in 1965. Read more.