Where do we stand

Where you stay, the places you choose to visit and how you get there can all make a difference in reducing carbon emissions. We've included a local directory of environmentally friendly accommodation, dining/catering and recreation to help you with these choices.

By holidaying reasonably close to your home or by using public transport or by car pooling, you are reducing your carbon emissions when traveling.

Lonely Planet co-founder Tony Wheeler, who calls himself “guilty, guilty, guilty” of polluting the planet by travel, admits he could not have foreseen the boom in air travel when he wrote his first guidebook in 1972¹. Each month, more than 400,000 Australians travel overseas, reports the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

Wheeler sums up the travel dilemma when he is honest enough to confess it has been weighing on his conscience for some time: “It doesn't make me feel good. But I'm not going to stop travelling — it's what my life is about.”¹

Above: Outdoor dining and lakeside at Topi Gums Bush Retreat.

Great changes in the Great Lakes

A good local example of sustainable accommodation options for tourists is Topi Gums Bush Retreat at Bungwahl. Their self-contained holiday cottages are run on solar power, collect water in tanks and have a self-composting sewerage system. Nestled in 100 aces of bushland there are many environmentally friendly activities available such as bushwalking, swimming, surfing, golf, tennis, adventure and sightseeing tours, stargazing and wildlife spotting. See the Tourism and Dining Local Directory for details.

A good local example of sustainable catering is provided by Tianjara Catering, servicing local functions. They are proud to produce “slow food”, cooked with love and care. Their food is always simple, delicious and wholesome by using fresh local organic produce from their garden or locally sourced, and by preparing their own curry powders and pastes, pasta sheets, pastries, chutneys, mayonnaise and salad dressings. See the Tourism and Dining Local Directory for details.

Tianjara also offers educational group tours of their sustainable house and garden, showcasing solar power, building materials, water efficiency and use of Biofuels. See the Living At Home Local Directory for details.

Above: Tianjara Catering at the Pacific Palms Markets.

Over to you

How can we do it?

Travel educates and broadens the mind, and connects us to the rest of the world — which is especially important for Australians. But how can we do it without damaging our environment?

It's a question the travel industry is seriously considering, according to Danielle Teutsch in The Age, who reports a joint announcement by Tony Wheeler and Mark Ellingham, a founder of Rough Guides, asking travellers to “fly less and stay longer” and donate money to carbon-offsetting schemes. Such schemes fund projects including tree planting that attempt to neutralise the emissions air travel creates.

In the UK, British Airways and the website lastminute.com offer customers the option of going carbon neutral.¹

In Australia, all air tickets sold by Intrepid Travel automatically include a carbon offset payment while Virgin Blue and Flight Centre offer offset schemes; and then there's the Greenfleet and Climate Friendly websites that allow you to calculate your emissions on their website calculators (see below).

Tourism Tasmania will pay to offset the flights of US tourists coming to Tasmania. Qantas has no immediate plans for an offset scheme but is updating its fleet with more fuel-efficient aircraft to reduce emissions by 15 per cent.

Pay for your emissions

The Greenfleet and Climate Friendly websites allow you to calculate your emissions on their website calculator, then pay a sum of money which the organisations use to invest in projects that directly compensate for the greenhouse gases you have released.

When you consider a return trip to Europe produces almost 11 tonnes of carbon emissions, based on calculations from the Federal Government's Bureau of Transport Economics, it is something all travellers should start thinking about.

Greenfleet invests in trees — the money goes towards various tree-planting projects, the biggest of which is in the Murray-Darling basin. Since 1997, Greenfleet has planted more than 2 million trees in Australia. The State and Federal Government departments, Qantas, Australia Post and the City of Sydney are among several organisations that offset their car usage with Greenfleet.

Climate Friendly invests in renewable energy projects such as wind and solar power. An important part of Climate Friendly's scheme is that each time a new customer signs up, they build demand for more clean energy sources, which in turn will drive down the price for renewable energy.

How much will it cost to offset travel?

With Greenfleet it costs from $4.70 to offset a return flight from Sydney to Melbourne, to $94 to offset a return flight to Europe.

Climate Friendly's air travel calculator says a return trip from Sydney to Melbourne will cost $9.51, while a return trip to Europe will cost $212 to offset.

Find out more

www.greenfleet.com.au — Greenfleet website
www.climatefriendly.com — Climate Friendly website

Other carbon offset groups

www.elementree.com.au — Elementree
www.carbonneutral.com.au — Carbon Neutral
www.easybeinggreen.com.au — Easy Being Green
www.co2australia.com.au — CO2 Australia

More information on tourism

www.ecotourism.org.au — National body for Australia's ecotourism industry
www.gumnutawards.com.au — recognises commitment to environmentally responsible management
www.greatlakes.org.au — Forster Tourist Information
www.earthwatch.org/australia — expeditions with scientific research involved

Books

Code Green: Lonely Planet

1. Danielle Teutsch, How green is your journey?, The Age, Melbourne, February 11, 2007.

Next: Climate Friendly Recreation Guide