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Carbon credits

We’re serious about our responsibility to tackle global climate change. That’s why Honeyguide is offsetting its CO2 emissions by buying ‘carbon credits’ for every holiday flight. To see the certificate showing carbon credits bought for Honeyguide for 2011, click here.

Air travel makes up only a small fraction of the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions at present, but that fraction is growing. As an environmentally minded company, we aim to keep our carbon emissions as low as possible, but we all realise it’s hard to cut our pollution entirely.

Train travel

One option to be 'green' and to avoid the cost of carbon offsets is to travel to our holiday destinations by public transport. Some Honeyguiders already do this. The website 'The Man in Seat 61' is a good place to start - see right - or try Rail Europe.

Carbon offsets with Carbon Clear

Realistically, most of our travellers will fly. That’s why we’ve chosen Carbon Clear to offset our carbon emissions from holiday flights. For more information, please visit www.carbon-clear.com.

Carbon Clear invests in projects that remove carbon dioxide from the air by replacing polluting technologies with clean ones.

We have worked with Carbon Clear to calculate the exact amount of carbon dioxide we emit, and Carbon Clear buys Carbon Credits in projects that prevent the same amount of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere.

For 2011, Honeyguide has bought for us 30 tonnes of Carbon Credits in a small hydropower project in Turkey. This generates clean hydroelectricity from a small 5MW plant, reducing carbon emissions by displacing fossil fuel use. The project supports the local economy by providing jobs and a sustainable fishery. More information here.

This amount is lower than previous years as we used to predict and buy in advance. For the first few years this was roughly correct, but we over-provided in 2010 because of holidays cancelled due to volcanic ash and an air traffic control strike. This has been taken into account in the latest calculation and we now buy carbon credits retrospectively.

Our previous project (in 2009 and 2010) was to offset our emissions by investing in a project to replace firewood cooking stoves with low smoke LPG stoves in Darfur, Sudan. These reduce carbon emissions, benefit wildlife by reducing wood cutting and provide huge health benefits for families. For more information on this project click here. In April 2011, Carbon Clear's Darfur Stoves Project made the finals of the Green IT's Carbon Offsetting Scheme of the Year.

Carbon offsets are relatively new and these offer good value for money. As offsets evolve over the coming years we hope in the long run to move towards carbon offsets in a country that Honeyguide visits.

Carbon Clear applies the following principles to all its projects: They must be efficient. Funds should not be diverted to unnecessary bureaucratic overheads, waste or middlemen. They must have additional, long-term benefits to the communities that undertake them. These range from employment opportunities to the protection of endangered species of plants and animals. They should follow the spirit of the Kyoto agreement. Projects must make pollution reductions over and above their normal level, and it is only this additional benefit to the environment that Carbon Clear supports.

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This is a small step in tackling such a big problem, but we hope by establishing this principle that more holiday businesses will follow. Hope rather than expect: the simple steps of printing our brochure on recycled paper and including a conservation contribution in the holiday price were applied from Honeyguide’s first holidays in 1991 (the donations now routed through the Honeyguide Wildlife Charitable Trust) but remain highly unusual.

Carbon Clear

Honeyguide was one the first companies to introduce carbon offsets. See news release, September 2006, here.

Carbon credits certificates for 2010 here and 2009 here.

 

Green, ethical, sustainable, and responsible tourism all pretty much mean the same thing. Tourism that benefits the people and environment in destinations.

Sustainable tourism training certificate issued by The Travel Foundation and ABTA or click on the pdf logo above.

 

The Man in Seat Sixty-One

The Man in Seat 61 "will tell you how to travel overland comfortably & affordably where you might think that air was now the only option."

Why Seat 61? It's the favourite seat on Eurostar for Mark Smith, the man behind the website. The site is not a travel agency or a business: it's simply there to give "practical advice to help people make journeys by train or ship instead of flying."

Bookings for Honeyguiders who travel without a flight are not covered by Honeyguide's ATOL - Air Travel Operator's Licence - as this covers flight-inclusive packages only. Please contact the Honeyguide office for more information.

Tips for green travelling for Honeyguiders

With an all-in package, there isn’t a great deal extra you can do. But there are a few things we like to
encourage. For Honeyguide, think ‘SWEET’

• Shopping: if buying souvenirs, locally made products help the local economy.
• Water & waste: bottled water is heavy on transport costs and waste disposal. In most areas we go to
tap water is fine – take local advice – so you can save a little and be greener by bringing a water bottle
or buying one bottle of water then topping it up from the tap.
• Enjoy: simply choosing Honeyguide Wildlife Holidays makes you greener than most.
• Enthuse: be an ambassador for nature – talk to people about why we are there. Just wearing binoculars carries a message.
• Travelling: please consider travelling to the airport by means other than a car – or at least car sharing where possible.

Offsets are still misunderstood, says Jonathan Porritt

Forum for the Future founder Jonathan Porritt discusses how the voluntary carbon market has matured. He argues that offsets are an effective tool for managing carbon emissions and for promoting sustainable development.

Read the article here. 

Helping you enjoy wildlife – Helping you protect wildlife