Walking holidays specialist HF Holidays is adding CO₂ labelling to holidays on its website to boost “carbon consciousness” and monitor progress in reducing its carbon footprint.
The operator, which recently announced its certification as a B Corporation, aims to provide customers with full transparency about the impact of their holidays.
David Harrington, HF Holidays chief executive, said: “As a co-operative, and a B Corp it is our long-term commitment to our 48,000 members to operate ethically and meet high social and environmental standards.
“Whilst walking holidays are by nature a low-carbon choice, our goal is to reduce the carbon intensity of our product by 5% each year and to start this process we needed to know how much carbon each trip currently uses.
“We aim to provide full transparency of our journey to become net zero by 2040, and by providing CO₂ emissions per trip, we hope to encourage customers to join us in our efforts by making conscious choices.”
Partnering with sustainability specialist, ecollective, the carbon measure for each trip is based on the amount of carbon dioxide (CO₂) emitted by each traveller.
This is then calculated as the carbon footprint for the average group size of an HF Holidays trip.
The calculation includes accommodation, transport, activities, meals, HF Holidays leaders and tour managers and flights or rail travel from the UK, where included in the package.
The average carbon footprint per person (kg of CO2e) on an HF Holidays trip is currently equal to 180kg CO₂ emissions, a reduction of 11kg in the last 12 months.
As part of its commitment to a more sustainable future, HF Holidays has converted its 16 country houses to use renewable energy and removed single-use plastic in the properties.
It has increased its range of rail tours and transport by rail options for 2025, and cut brochure and direct mailing by encouraging guests to view holidays online.