Environment

As a leading player in the delivery of online air travel purchasing options and travel information, Global Travel Market understands the impact of travel on the environment and the need for greater awareness and education in this area. Air travel provides a global benefit and is calculated to support as much as 8% of the world’s GDP, but increasing air usage poses a carbon emissions problem that cannot be ignored. At GTM we believe it is important that we provide the carbon emissions value of your flights so that you can take positive action and understand how your air travel affects the environment.

Reducing carbon emissions will not be delivered by grounding every plane, but by each of us changing our overall behaviour to reduce emissions in our work and at home. At GTM we wish to provide our users with a balanced perspective and high quality information. Our travellers carbon guidance notes are designed to support more sustainable travel practice and to help highlight the small things we can all do whilst travelling to support the environment and reduce emissions.

The aim of our programme is to raise awareness, provide you with options for action and to help stimulate behavioural change with regard to carbon emissions. Education and information are a key part of this process, providing the facts that help us to tackle climate change. We can for example offset our travel through carbon saving products, but we can also choose to reduce carbon emissions through our car or home energy use to offset the emissions from our air travel. Carbon emissions result from all types of activity, not just air travel, and managing our overall personal carbon footprints is the key to a lower carbon world.

1. Pack Efficiently: Fly with as little baggage as possible. This is most important on short haul flights, where research indicates that reduced baggage has the most impact on reducing per passenger emissions.
2. Public Transport: Use public transport as much as possible in your destination. Using intercity trains as opposed to air travel for shorter journeys saves carbon.
3. Remember the lights: Always turn the lights off when leaving your hotel room. Power usage creates emissions.
4. Local Produce: Buy locally produced goods. They will have travelled less and thus created less emissions than imported products.
5. Car Hire: When hiring a car choose lower emissions models and hybrids where possible, to reduce your emissions.
6. Departure: In the UK travel to the airport using train or bus connections where possible.
7. Your House: When you go on holiday make sure that all non essential power usage is turned off.
8. Air Conditioning: Use air conditioning sparingly and turn off when leaving your room.
9. Laundry: Make full use of hotel sheet and towel reuse programmes. Excess laundry activity creates emissions and wastes water.
10. Renewable Energy: Where available choose hotels that are eco friendly and use renewable energy.
11. Offset your travel emissions by creating a corresponding emissions saving at home: Each household is estimated to emit 6 tonnes of CO2 each year through energy use, and the driver of a medium sized car will emit over 2.5 tons a year. A reduction in these emissions through better energy efficiency at home and better driving behaviour and a reduction in short journeys could offset your holiday emissions.

We have selected The Carbon Consultancy as our carbon partner. They have developed advanced calculators to enable you to calculate your air travel emissions and provide products that balance the carbon emissions from your travel. Their carbon responsible platform provides a range of information and FAQs that you may find helpful. If you can’t find a specific question they would be pleased to answer specific questions by email.

Carbon offsets have a role in reducing your environmental impact through carbon emissions, but without reductions in emissions climate change will not be averted. Here is our comprehensive offset overview to help you assess how offsets work.

Carbon offset is the process of balancing a defined unit of carbon dioxide emissions with a product that saves or stores an equivalent amount of carbon dioxide. The offset process will vary in its delivery of the saving or storage of carbon dioxide. This overview is designed to provide potential users of offset with the facts that they need to decide upon the best product for their requirements.

In very simple terms the carbon dioxide emissions are directly related to the carbon content of fuel types. This can be very accurately assessed in laboratory conditions. In general the emissions from any activity involving the combustion of fossil fuels will be determined by the method of combustion and any blending of fossil fuels with performance enhancing ingredients. The per passenger calculations for carbon dioxide emissions will in crude terms depend mainly upon the number of people who use the fuel as energy or for travel, either directly or as a consumer of goods and services, the method of combustion and conditions of use. The calculation of emissions will determine the quantity of carbon dioxide that will form the basis of any offset. The more detailed the emissions calculation the greater the chance that it is actually matched to an offset quantity.

Offset rebalances specific emissions, but its overall role in climate change prevention as an independent activity is to retard not reverse it. The value of retarding the pace of climate change through offset is to help to provide more time for behavioural change, technology and legislation to begin to reduce emissions overall and thus arrest climate change. To address the rapidly increasing carbon content of the atmosphere it is critical to reduce emissions overall. The accepted approach to carbon emissions is that emissions should be saved where possible and offset where they cannot be saved. Currently offsets used as part of integrated corporate carbon strategies, but are also used as demonstrable environmental credentials. Irrespective of the motive for using offsets, how is it possible to distinguish between the available options? Purchasers must consider a range of factors in their offset choice.

The carbon tonnage of the emissions and the savings are calculated to provide a purchasable offset. This process is often referred to as becoming "carbon neutral".
The immediate act of purchasing an offset, for example 1 ton of offset, does not confer immediate carbon neutrality upon the purchaser, as the savings are not immediate but often gradual over a period of time. For this reason The Carbon Consultancy promotes the more correct corporate message of carbon responsibility.

For any offset project to have a balancing value it must be originated for the purposes of creating additional carbon savings or storage. It cannot be a saving or storage of emissions created in a business as usual activity and sold retrospectively. This means that existing savings being created by a project that would have been created by an individual or organization in the course of their every day activities cannot be sold retrospectively as an offset. Funds for offset projects must be channelled into additional/new projects that will save or store carbon dioxide. They must be able to demonstrate that their activity is an additional carbon benefit. All The Carbon Consultancy products are additional.

Offset values must be calculated and apportioned in a precise manner that avoids the possibility of any double counting of savings. Double counting can result from any situation where carbon savings are present in a supply chain and claimed by more than one component part of that supply chain. In a renewable energy project that is created to save carbon emissions for a specific company, the company could not claim the carbon value of the renewable energy for its own footprint and then sell on these savings to consumers as a product or service benefit that allowed consumers to claim reductions in their personal footprint. The savings must remain with the company or be passed on directly to its consumers.

In many cases the use of developing world offset products can involve paying developing world residents to emit less whilst the offset purchaser in the developing world continues to emit at the same pace. This will not prevent climate change and involves an ethical and moral dilemma. The Carbon Consultancy uses predominantly UK products as we believe that behavioural change in the UK is key to emissions reductions and UK offsets can help to deliver that change. UK residents emit nearly 10 tons of CO2 each year in comparison to 1 ton or less per head in many Asian & African countries.

VERs
These offsets range from well audited to poorly defined emissions savings/storage. At the most regulated end of the market VERs are certified offsets in waiting, at the least regulated end of the market they can be theatrical and fail to fully offset the emissions they have been designed to balance. The VER market has a number of distinct project types.

Trees. Woodland is one of the earths natural carbon sinks, processing and storing carbon dioxide. The creation of new woodland supports natural carbon reprocessing. The location and management of new woodland will determine how successful it is as a carbon sink.

Education. The use of dedicated UK energy education programmes to deliver carbon savings has a direct bearing on emissions creation/reduction in the UK. The focus is upon reduction of developed world emissions.

Biomass Stoves. The use of biomass stoves is designed to reduce the deforestation of developing world countries and to directly reduce CO2 by promoting more fuel-efficient cooking methods.

Low Energy Lightbulbs. The distribution of lightbulbs in the developing world is designed to reduce CO2 from lighting use, with a reduction in electricity usage which may have been generated at a higher than average CO2 cost.

Solar Panels Technology is one of the key ingredients in the drive towards lower carbon emissions and in many developing countries with high levels of annual sunshine they can be very effective.

Methane Capture. Methane is more powerful than CO2 although it has a shorter life span. It is produced naturally by wetlands and farm animals, but also through landfill sites. Methane capture from landfills and coalmines can be used to reduce methane and provide a power source.

Certified Units
Traded units or certified emissions come in three main forms. Any projects that are VERs may be CERs in waiting.

ERUs are emissions reduction units that are created in the developed world from projects that have saved carbon emissions through low carbon technology or biomass for example.
CERs are emissions reduction units created in developing world locations using low carbon technology, but whose savings may be used in developed world emissions reduction calculations under a mechanic known as the Clean Development Mechanism.
EUAs are allowances that are created by EU national governments to limit emissions. They are a traded unit that allows surplus carbon credits to be sold on the open market to those who have exceeded their allowances.

VERs
The key issues for prospective purchasers of VERs are the ability to verify their existence, to be assured that the projects are viable and that funds provided are destined for the selected project. In addition to these central issues are additional considerations of their wider environmental value, their additionality and their role in reducing and promoting emissions reduction overall.

Certified units
In theory but not entirely in practice certified units will deliver savings of emissions that have been more thoroughly vetted than VERs and will be compliant with stringent project certification and a framework that provides the purchaser with greater security. This will include definition on areas such as project leakage, double counting, and lifetime of a carbon project. The purchaser is still, as with VERs, taking the risk of the purchase upon themselves.
Many of the projects that comprise VERs are not acceptable certified projects. This does not necessarily reflect any deficiency in carbon saving/storage of VERs, but more that their aims may be a combination of carbon and wider social and environmental considerations.

Certified products that are CDM based may be graded upon their wider social and environmental value. The CDM Gold Standard based in Basel is an organization that helps to define suitable projects for purchasers in this respect.

1. Verification - both of project existence but also how it delivers carbon balance.
2. Emissions calculation - the calculated emissions method must be understood to enable a clear match with any offset product.
3. Viability - there must be clarity on the long-term viability of any project, where carbon savings are delivered over a long period of time.
4. Value - what is the offset value in terms of carbon saved/stored and wider benefits in the context of CO2 reduction.
5. Content - what does the offset unit include and is this specified by the broker or project originator.
6. Delivery - how does the offset unit actually deliver the content and value that it claims.
7. Reason for purchase - the purpose of offset will help to determine choice. Companies in a regulatory framework must purchase certified credits. Individuals may choose offsets according to personal taste. Unregulated companies may choose projects that fit their brand or product profile in terms of project location and type.

The purchase of offset is similar to the purchase of any technical consumer item or even a financial instrument like a share. They are created and priced based upon the best available data, which itself will continue to evolve and improve. The purchaser must satisfy themselves on key product issues and establish a basic understanding of the mechanics of offset projects. They must look beyond the immediate surface content and consider the key points that have been outlined above.