Carbonscored was created and developed between Far and Wild Travel and ecollective in response to growing consumer demand for sustainable travel choices by creating a ‘world first’ tool that accurately measures carbon score for tailor-made holiday itineraries.
Could knowing your holiday’s carbon score be the key to driving more sustainable travel choices?
Research by Booking.com shows that over 70% of travellers believe we need act now and make sustainable travel choices to protect the planet for future generations. But, without knowing the impact of your trip, how do you know if you are making a sustainable holiday choice?
British company, Far & Wild Travel have a solution. They have created the world’s first carbon-scoring framework for tailor-made travel (initially) in Africa. By allocating every holiday quotation they create an individual carbon score, they believe consumers will be empowered to make more sustainable travel decisions.
Ben Morison, Far & Wild Founder said:
“We know people want to make sustainable holiday choices – the problem is they often lack the information to make that decision easily. By giving every holiday quotation a carbon score alongside the price, we will broaden the criteria customers use to make their decision. The old age saying, ‘what gets measured, gets managed’ is undoubtedly true and we expect to see clients choosing flights, hotels and entire trips with a better sustainability score.”
The detailed framework for Carbonscored was developed by leading sustainability consultancy ecollective, and considers factors such as the flight length, whether the route is direct or has a stop off, if transfers are private or shared, hotel energy sources, water usage, food sources, the fuel used to undertake activities such as a game-drive on safari… to name a just few.
Charlie Cotton, ecollective MD said:
“The travel industry has consistently found it a huge challenge to accurately measure carbon footprints on tailor-made trips in a meaningful way. Having worked on this for the past 12 months we are thrilled to have finally cracked this by creating our highly technical model in partnership with Far & Wild Travel. The impact of this project has the potential to be far reaching… not only enabling lower carbon holidays for customers, but also helping suppliers on the ground to understand and then reduce their own footprint too.”
All parties are confident this detailed framework is more precise and in-depth than anything currently being used in the tailor-made travel sector. The end score will be benchmarked against an average – and broken down into individual elements so that consumers can see exactly where their carbon emissions are adding up. Customers will then be able to change flights, hotels, duration, or activities to reduce this, as well as being given options to offset their carbon usage.
Far & Wild tailormade holiday quotations now include a detailed carbon score.
Ben continues:
“We want to ensure that travel is a force for good and that every holiday we arrange has a positive impact. We believe we are the first tailor-made travel company in the world that is able to provide consumers with this detailed type of information, and we hope others will follow suit.”
Fiona Jeffery OBE, Founder of Just a Drop and former Chair of the African Travel and Tourism Association (ATTA) said:“As tourism’s impacts on the planet grow, it is essential that travel companies put sustainable travel at the heart of their agenda. By carbon scoring every element of their trips, Far & Wild Travel make it easier for their customers to make sustainable travel choices and are also providing vital education and benchmarking around what ‘good’ looks like. Initiatives like this are key to helping us move to a world where sustainable and ethical travel becomes the norm rather than the exception.”
As part of its broader commitment to sustainability, Far & Wild plans to make its carbon scoring framework, Carbonscored, available to other travel businesses in the tailor-made travel sector.
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