Explained: How We Calculate and Offset Our Travellers’ Emissions
Written by Jess Tyrrell
Viatu is committed to reshaping travel as a relentless force for good. One way we do this is by participating in the decarbonisation of the tourism industry. Read on to learn how we calculate the carbon labels of our trips and the total footprint of our travellers, and the climate project we offset our travellers' emissions with!
Reduce, change, avoid
We promote a reduction in travel by travelling slowly, less frequently, and for more extended stays. Secondly, we advocate for a change in travel behaviour where travellers opt for low-emission modes of transport, choose economy class in accountable airlines, and pack lightly. Lastly, we make climate contributions for the emissions that our travellers cannot avoid.
We believe trip carbon footprints should be fully transparent from the outset. We achieve this by displaying carbon labels on all our inspirational trips to help consumers understand their impact while booking and empower them to make informed decisions.
Our climate partner for estimating trip emissions
Viatu has partnered with Berlin-based Squake — a climate tech venture supported by the Lufthansa Innovation Hub — to calculate our inspirational trips' carbon footprint. This neat integration generates the carbon label based on the number of nights in hotels and the driving distances between them. This carbon label represents the emissions of one traveller. After booking a trip, we account for the number of travellers in your group.
How we calculate our travellers’ carbon footprints
For roadtrips
We use myclimate’s car calculator to calculate the carbon footprint of our travellers’ car journeys. The car calculator deduces the greenhouse gas emissions based on the fuel or electricity consumption of the vehicle used for the trip. To determine the consumption, we record:
the total road distance travelled by our traveller/s (km)
the car’s average fuel consumption, and
the car’s fuel or energy type
This information is used to calculate the total consumption and then the resulting carbon footprint.
If the vehicle’s average consumption is not known, a vehicle size category can be selected which uses an average consumption of the corresponding category as an approximation. This information is then used to calculate the emissions produced during the journey as well as the emissions produced by the processing and provision of fuel or electricity.
For hotel stays
The emissions from hotel stays are calculated according to the establishment's star rating, number of rooms, and nights.
Local Climate projects we contribute to through purchasing offsets
We purchase the equivalent number of carbon credits from verified and registered climate projects within the region of travel when travellers completes their trip, We aim to create positive social, economic and environmental impact in the local geographies of our trips, thus we prioritise purchasing credits from local projects.
For our South African and Namibian trips, we currently purchase credits from Climate Neutral Group's Verra Standard Certified 'Wonderbag' carbon offset project in South Africa. The Wonderbag is a non-electric, heat retention cooker that allows food brought to a boil by conventional methods to continue to cook for up to 12 hours without using an additional energy source. Our travellers receive personalised certificates confirming their offset! This project contributes to several Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including No Poverty, Good Health and Wellbeing, Gender Equality, Sustainable Cities and Communities, and Climate Action.
We then send our traveller's personalised certificates that break down their emissions and confirm the offset.
We hope that by displaying our trips' carbon labels and breaking down traveller footprints, we are empowering travellers to understand and quantify their impact on the environment. And likewise, we aim to hold ourselves accountable within the tourism industry.
Head to our site to check out all the carbon labels of our trips! If you find one that tickles your fancy, rest assured that you will have complete clarity into your impact.
