Tour operator Intrepid drops carbon offsets and emissions targets | Travel & leisure
Intrepid, one of the travel industry’s most environmentally focused tour operators, is canceling carbon offsets and viewing emissions targets as unattainable.
The Australia-based global travel company said it would instead invest A$2 million (£980,000) a year in a supervised “climate impact fund” supporting urgent practical measures such as switching to electric vehicles and investing in renewable energy.
Intrepid, which specializes in small-group tours, said it was halting carbon offsets and “walking away” from the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) after committing to 2030 targets tracked by the climate certification body five years ago.
Intrepid co-founder and chairman Darrell Wade and chief executive James Thornton said in an open letter to staff: “Intrepid, and frankly the entire travel industry, is not on track to achieve a 1.5C future, and more urgent action is needed if we are to get any closer to it.”
While Intrepid’s brand focuses on the low impact of group tours, it has long acknowledged that its larger footprint is the flights its customers use to get them; Wade also admitted two years ago that his balancing was “not reliable”.
The letter accused governments of “failing to take action on ambitious policies on renewable energy or sustainable aviation fuels that support the necessary scale of change”, adding: “We are not comfortable pursuing a target that we know we cannot achieve.”
Thornton acknowledged that climate commitments have not worked, saying the change should build trust through transparency rather than losing customers. He told the Guardian: “We became the first global tour operator to adopt a science-based target through SBTi and we are now accepting the fact that this is not working for us. We have always been genuine and transparent, this is how we build trust.”
He said the fund and a new target to reduce the “carbon intensity” of each trip had been developed by climate scientists and would be verified by independent auditors.
Thornton said part of that initiative will be to reduce the number of long-haul flights customers take by prioritizing domestic and short-haul trips and offering more flight-free routes and walking or walking tours.
Environmental advocates have long put offsets aside and focused on cutting flights. Doug Parr, Greenpeace UK’s chief scientist, said offsetting schemes allowed “airlines and other big polluters to falsely claim green credentials while continuing to pump out emissions”.
He said Greenpeace supports a frequent flyer tax, with the first flight each year tax-free to avoid taxing the annual family holiday, but rising rapidly with subsequent flights to deter “overflyers who are the main engine of growth for UK flights”.
Thornton said he had “seen first-hand how important climate action is to our founders and owners who see it as part of their legacy” but added: “We must be honest with ourselves that travel in its current format is not sustainable and anything that suggests otherwise is greenwashing.”
