Environment

As a leading player in the delivery of online air travel purchasing options and travel information, Global Travel Market understands the impact of travel on the environment and the need for greater awareness and education in this area. Air travel provides a global benefit and is calculated to support as much as 8% of the world’s GDP, but increasing air usage poses a carbon emissions problem that cannot be ignored. At GTM we believe it is important that we provide the carbon emissions value of your flights so that you can take positive action and understand how your air travel affects the environment.

Reducing carbon emissions will not be delivered by grounding every plane, but by each of us changing our overall behaviour to reduce emissions in our work and at home. At GTM we wish to provide our users with a balanced perspective and high quality information. Our travellers carbon guidance notes are designed to support more sustainable travel practice and to help highlight the small things we can all do whilst travelling to support the environment and reduce emissions.

The aim of our programme is to raise awareness, provide you with options for action and to help stimulate behavioural change with regard to carbon emissions. Education and information are a key part of this process, providing the facts that help us to tackle climate change. We can for example offset our travel through carbon saving products, but we can also choose to reduce carbon emissions through our car or home energy use to offset the emissions from our air travel. Carbon emissions result from all types of activity, not just air travel, and managing our overall personal carbon footprints is the key to a lower carbon world.

1. Pack Efficiently: Fly with as little baggage as possible. This is most important on short haul flights, where research indicates that reduced baggage has the most impact on reducing per passenger emissions.
2. Public Transport: Use public transport as much as possible in your destination. Using intercity trains as opposed to air travel for shorter journeys saves carbon.
3. Remember the lights: Always turn the lights off when leaving your hotel room. Power usage creates emissions.
4. Local Produce: Buy locally produced goods. They will have travelled less and thus created less emissions than imported products.
5. Car Hire: When hiring a car choose lower emissions models and hybrids where possible, to reduce your emissions.
6. Departure: In the UK travel to the airport using train or bus connections where possible.
7. Your House: When you go on holiday make sure that all non essential power usage is turned off.
8. Air Conditioning: Use air conditioning sparingly and turn off when leaving your room.
9. Laundry: Make full use of hotel sheet and towel reuse programmes. Excess laundry activity creates emissions and wastes water.
10. Renewable Energy: Where available choose hotels that are eco friendly and use renewable energy.
11. Offset your travel emissions by creating a corresponding emissions saving at home: Each household is estimated to emit 6 tonnes of CO2 each year through energy use, and the driver of a medium sized car will emit over 2.5 tons a year. A reduction in these emissions through better energy efficiency at home and better driving behaviour and a reduction in short journeys could offset your holiday emissions.

We have selected The Carbon Consultancy as our carbon partner. They have developed advanced calculators to enable you to calculate your air travel emissions and provide products that balance the carbon emissions from your travel. Their carbon responsible platform provides a range of information and FAQs that you may find helpful. If you can’t find a specific question they would be pleased to answer specific questions by email.