by Lacey Pfalz
Last updated: 3:40 PM ET, Thu April 7, 2022
Explore Worldwide, a leading small-group tour operator with forty years of experience and founding signatory of the Glasgow Declaration, has now published its carbon emissions data for all of its over 500 tours.
Partnered with Ecollective for the task, the tour operator's product team analyzed nearly 10,000 lines of data, with 2,000 accommodations and 24 types of transport across its 515 tours during 2018 and 2019, prior to the pandemic's influence. Additionally, the tour operator also calculated the carbon emissions of its print materials, staff commutes, staff flights and more.
Now that it has measured its carbon footprint, it can begin its goal of reducing it by 50 percent prior to 2030. The tour operator's current average carbon footprint for its trips is 632kg, which, according to the EPA's Greenhouse Gas Equivalencies Calculator is equal to 71.1 gallons of gasoline consumed, 699 pounds of coal burned or 76,878 cell phones charged.
Its lowest tours are Walk the South Downs Short Break, at 59kg per person; Cycle Canal du Midi and Active Turkey, at 79 kg per person each.
"I'm so proud of our team, who have worked tirelessly for months to get accurate, scientific measurements for carbon across our entire global program," said Michael Edwards, CEO of Explore. "And this is just the start. Now, with a clear understanding of how our trips impact the planet, the hard work continues, as we work alongside our partners and suppliers to start bringing these totals down."
"We really need this to be an industry-wide initiative. Working together as an industry, we're stronger and more able to bring about change. We know the methodology is there, so really there's no excuse now not to be completely transparent with our customers."
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