Sustainable Business Travel for SMEs: 3 Purposeful Tips
With summer just around the corner and an eagerness to travel after years of social distancing, the tourism industry is preparing for a surge in travel that is sure to leave behind a heavy carbon footprint.
Each year the global tourism industry is responsible for about 8% of the world’s annual carbon emissions, a number that is likely to increase as the travel & tourism industry rapidly grows. Americans have reported that they plan to travel 49% more in 2023 than previously in 2022.
This large influx of travel could have disastrous impacts on the environment, but also on the viability of future travel. The travel & tourism industry is expected to be one of the most highly impacted industries due to climate change, by depleting or destroying natural resources, limiting the accessibility of travel seasons due to extreme climates, and impacting the overall quality of travel experiences and destinations.
As small and medium sized-enterprises (SMEs) prepare for business travel and as climate change is on the rise, it is essential to consider how you can minimize your carbon footprint while growing your business and making meaningful client connections.
Adopting an Ethical Travel Philosophy
Sustainable tourism is a more responsible and mindful way of traveling aimed at minimizing the negative impacts while emphasizing the positives.
According to the UN’s World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), sustainable tourism takes full consideration into “current and future economic, social and environmental impacts, addressing the needs of visitors, the industry, the environment, and host communities.” This means that your travel will improve the travel destination by creating economic growth or jobs, promoting the local culture, and minimizing the impact on the environment by saving energy or reducing waste, which is part of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to reduce poverty and increase economic growth.
With this philosophy in mind and the following sustainable travel strategies, you can ensure that your SME is making better choices that are in line with the three P’s of the triple bottom line: people, planet, and profit.
Choose Lower Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Businesses may have clients and employees all over the world, which can make it hard to connect. Now with video call technology, it has never been easier to meet synchronously across the globe. Before finalizing your travel plans, consider if your business can be conducted virtually.
However, when you must travel, try to pick the more sustainable option, especially for flights and accommodations which contribute to nearly 100% of the tourism & travel industry’s CO2 footprint. Of the 8% of carbon emissions released by the travel & tourism industry, transportation is responsible for 75% of emissions and 21% for accommodations.
Take time to research brands with strong commitments toward sustainability. Many airlines tell you how much carbon dioxide (CO2) a flight emits or have made commitments to carbon neutrality by 2030. Major hotels and accommodations have also made eco-conscious commitments, such as implementing motion-activated lighting or allowing guests to use their towels more than once before washing. Even better, try to stay at smaller, locally-owned hotels and eco-lodges that are run by marginalized communities to make a social and environmental purpose.
Support Local Businesses
Once you have arrived at your final destination, shopping locally can minimize your carbon footprint. When checking reviews for restaurants or shopping for a souvenir, research local businesses that provide locally-sourced ingredients and products, as these resources typically require less transportation and therefore require fewer CO2 emissions to make it to the store shelves. Not only does this ensure food is fresher, it also ensures that you are supporting local farmers. Plus, you can find unique, handmade products by supporting local artists and merchants, promoting the local economy.
When dining out at a local restaurant, choose meatless and dairy-free alternatives. The livestock industry contributes to 14.5% of human-responsible greenhouse gases (GHGs). Plant-based alternatives produce less CO2 than meat and dairy, regardless of being produced locally or not. Going vegetarian or vegan, even for just the duration of a business trip is an easy way to minimize your footprint.
Offset Your Carbon Footprint
When you must travel, consider offsetting your carbon footprint. Traveling by plane, although unavoidable at times, emits more GHGs than other transportation methods.
Carbon offsets are the purchase of carbon credits or offsets to counterbalance the environmental cost of your SME’s footprint, whether it be travel or another area of your business. The hardest part of carbon offsetting and becoming carbon-neutral certified is determining which areas of your business are contributing to your SME’s carbon footprint, but RyeStrategy can help.
Interested in reducing the overall carbon footprint of your SME? RyeStrategy provides specialized and affordable carbon offsetting services that make it easy to transform your SME into a carbon-neutral certified business. We also provide a specific flight package that calculates flight-related emissions and offset strategy packages for your company employees.
There is a Way to Balance Your Carbon Footprint and Have a Sustainability Mindset
Travel allows us to appreciate the beauty of our planet, but travel is also leading to the rise of GHGs in the atmosphere. By becoming more aware of the negative consequences of GHG emissions on the environment, you can make better informed sustainable choices that can help your SME drive business success while also saving the planet.
There is not a one-sided answer to this problem. Tourism, while bad for the environment, is essential for creating jobs, reducing poverty, and promoting cultural awareness. We cannot eliminate travel but we also cannot continue to excessively consume, so the answer lies somewhere in the middle - we should make sure we are making mindful choices, limiting waste, and balancing how much carbon we emit.
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About RyeStrategy
Based in Seattle, RyeStrategy is a CDP-accredited, mission-oriented company specialized in carbon accounting, mitigation coaching, and climate disclosure solutions for organizations at any point in their sustainability journey. Learn how RyeStrategy helped Salesforce, Ideascale, and Wazoku achieve their sustainability goals.
From exhaustive carbon footprinting and mitigation coaching, to setting science-based targets and reporting climate data to CDP, SBTi or custom reporting platforms, RyeStrategy acts as a hands-on extension of the team, custom-tailoring services to fulfill climate disclosure requirements easily and accurately.
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