Global adventure travel company Exodus Travels has become a founding signatory of the ‘Tourism Declares a Climate Emergency’ pledge – an effort to fight climate change and significantly reduce the growing environmental footprint of the tourism industry.
In October 2018, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a crucial report on global warming, noting a consistent increase in global temperatures that is anticipated to result in a devastating impact on people and the planet by 2050.
In response, a new network of organisations, companies and individuals working in the tourism industry have come together to declare a climate emergency, launched at www.tourismdeclares.com.
Tourism Declares is a global collective of industry leaders, united by their public acknowledgement declaration of a climate emergency.
Tourism Declares was launched at the start of the year and is initially a time-limited initiative running for 12 months. In that time, the remit is to encourage and enable as many travel businesses and organisations as possible to declare a climate emergency, develop their Climate Emergency Plan and advocate for change. A remit for the network from 2021 to 2030 will be developed during this year, based on the feedback of members.
Exodus Travels is committed to becoming an advocate within the travel industry by collaborating with other sustainable travel companies – including Intrepid Travel and ResponsibleTravel.com – who have signed the pledge and will be collectively working towards reducing the environmental impact across the travel sector.
As a founding signatory, Exodus Travels recognises there is an urgent climate emergency and is committed to making a proactive change within the next 12 months to measure, reduce and mitigate their carbon footprint. They also commit to setting carbon reduction goals in line with the IPCC advice to gut global emissions to 55% below 2017 levels.
In a statement yesterday, Exodus Travels pointed out that it already works tirelessly to minimise its carbon impact “through a holistic and sustainable travel approach across all of their trips”.
“This is done through partnering with eco-friendly, locally owned and run accommodation providers such as the Esquinas Rainforest Lodge in Costa Rica, visitation to local restaurants and food markets that source food locally rather than importing, and supporting the protection of carbon-capturing biodiversity such as in Finland through the Wild Oulanka Foundation.
“By signing the pledge, Exodus Travels is taking a powerful step forward to creating a sustainable tourism industry across the world”.
Full details of the Tourism Declares a Climate Emergency pledge are available at www.exodustravels.com/sustainable-travel/declaration.
Edited by Peter Needham
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Good analysis. It’s time for people and governments work together (and governments should listen more to citizens) in order to stop the climate emergency. And tourist companies have to be connected with this work.
Thanks for sharing!