The world’s largest adventure travel company first acknowledged the elephant in the room — travel’s hefty carbon footprint — in 2005. An initial inkling that the climate emergency needed to be tackled head-on, rather than brushed to one side, led to Intrepid becoming the world’s largest carbon-neutral travel company in 2010 and a founding signatory of Tourism Declares in 2020. It doesn’t stop there; this year Intrepid is the first tour operator to submit science-based carbon reduction targets. 

To understand more about Intrepid’s carbon management journey, and how the industry can better collaborate, we chatted to Dr Susanne Etti, Environmental Impact Specialist for Intrepid Travel. 

What motivated Intrepid to join Tourism Declares? 

Intrepid’s climate crisis work goes way back to 2005 when senior managers read The Weather Makers: The History and Future Impact of Climate Change by Tim Flannery. The book made Intrepid question how it could do more to limit its carbon footprint, and so we surveyed several thousand travellers across the globe and discovered that 91% wanted us to take definitive action on climate. Our customers – or potential customers – had spoken and we started to take practical steps.  In 2010 we became the world’s largest carbon-neutral travel company. 

Over the last 15-years, the need for action has grown more obvious year-on-year. Not only is the climate crisis leading to extreme weather events that threaten people and wildlife world over, but it is a significant threat to our business. So many of the destinations we love may well be destroyed by drought, fire, or other weather events over the next decade. 

Tourism Declares is, therefore, a very natural progression for us. In 2018 we became the world’s largest certified travel B-Corp and we were looking for ways to share best practice and encourage more travel businesses to declare a climate emergency. When Jeremy and Alex approached us to help shape Tourism Declares, we didn’t hesitate for a moment. 

Is declaring a climate emergency still important in light of the Covid-19 crisis?

Everyone has Covid-19 front of mind, of course, but it is so important that we don’t lose sight of the more significant crisis. Climate change is a larger and unsolvable threat—we’re not going to find a vaccine to reduce its impact. 

If anything, the Covid-19 crisis is highlighting how much more we could be doing to combat the climate crisis. It’s proven what can be achieved when governments work together, find funding, and take action. It has also shown us how much is possible if we have the will to change. 

What action has Intrepid taken since declaring a climate emergency?

We have been measuring our carbon emissions and offsetting what we can’t reduce since 2010. We continually review our trips and operations to work out where we can reduce our carbon emissions further. 

Three notable projects this year are submitting a science-based emission reduction target for approval by the Science-Based Target Initiative, committing to our offices using 100% renewable energy by 2025, and publishing a complimentary 10 Steps to Decarbonise Your Travel Business guide.  

We’re the world’s first  tour operator to set science-based targets and hope that more will follow suit. It means that we can set a carbon emissions reduction target at the pace and scale that science believes is necessary to limit global warming to a maximum of 1.5°C. Now that we’ve calculated and submitted a science-based emissions reduction target, it is under review by the Science Based Targets Initiative. Watch this space for more details later this year. 

What tools or resources have you found most helpful in declaring an emergency and writing a climate emergency plan?

The B Corporation Climate Emergency Toolkit is one of the most helpful I’ve come across. 

What are the main challenges you face when reducing emissions?

One of the biggest challenges is that we are all in a supply chain and are dependent on one another to move forward. We need the adoption of a low carbon economy globally — the aviation sector needs to cut carbon wherever possible, even on the ground while most planes aren’t in the air for a while. And countries need to adopt greener energy, and low-carbon tech needs more global funding. 

Travel’s supply chains are particularly complex; there’s no one size fits all solution. 

Each Intrepid trip offers our travellers a local, authentic, sustainable and carbon-offset experience. In order to reduce the Greenhouse Gas intensity or our trips we also rely on our suppliers, like accommodation and transport providers to decarbonise. For example, in Iceland and Costa Rica, we’re ahead because the national energy supply is so clean. In China, we’ve been able to move away in many cases from flights towards trains because the infrastructure is good, but in somewhere like Australia, those alternatives don’t exist. 

A lot of carbon reduction is to do with smarter planning, which means we can identify and prepare for greater efficiency. Capacity is also important because running a trip that is only half full has a significant impact on our emissions. On the operations side, Covid-19 has proven that we can collaborate remotely, which will reduce the need for as much business travel in the future. We’ve also found that some changes are relatively easy to make, although this varies from country to country: in the UK we can switch energy providers to renewable energy whereas in Canada we have to rely on renewable energy certificates. 

Finally, we’re now seeing a shift towards domestic or local travel which is good news when it comes to carbon. The silver lining of the pandemic is that more of us are learning to like what is local. 

What solutions are you most proud of?

We’re incredibly proud of being carbon neutral since 2010, and how we’ve achieved this. We support six, high quality, Gold Standard and Verified carbon standard certified projects , that we’ve carefully chosen to ensure they have environmental, social, and economic benefits. 

Another significant achievement for us has been the B Corporation certification, which took three years to complete. It’s a complex certification, and we hope more travel businesses will also take part.  

What comes next in Intrepid’s climate emergency plan? 

The approval of our science-based targets will be a massive milestone for us, and we want to share more best practice, and encourage other leading travel businesses to tackle the climate emergency. We don’t want to be the only travel company leading the way. 

Do you think it’s important that the travel industry works collaboratively on combating the climate crisis? Why? 

Travel is a complex supply chain, and so we’re hugely dependent on each other to make progress. As a business, we need to take into account our direct and indirect emissions, so if we help each other, we all benefit. Companies have much more power and long-term influence if they work together. 

What advice would you give others that are considering declaring and drawing up a climate emergency plan? 

Always reach out to others and ask for help. There’s no point everyone reinventing the wheel. 

When it comes to a climate emergency plan, look for existing templates and support from organisations like Tourism Declares and B Corporation. I recently participate in a webinar entitled Rebuilding Responsibly: How and Why to Decarbonize the Travel Industry Following the Pandemic – where leading experts will share practical steps you can take to make a meaningful impact on climate change.

Finally, make measurement the priority — you can’t begin to talk about reductions until you’ve measured your carbon emissions. 

For more information about Intrepid’s carbon management go to https://www.intrepidtravel.com/uk/carbon-management.