Environment - Eco-Friendly International Travel

Last week saw an encampment of worthy eco-supporters setting up base on the outskirts of Heathrow airport in protest of emissions produced by air travel. Rightly or wrongly, some of the participants were stripped bare by the press when asked about their own travel habits: many of the demonstrators turned out to be fairly regular flyers themselves. So what can you do if you DO enjoy travelling but still wish to minimise long-term damage to the planet?

Entrepreneur Justin Francis may have the answer. Recognising the conflict experienced by those of us that genuinely enjoy travelling but realise the effects air travel has on climate change, Justin launched www.responsibletravel.com in 2001. Essentially, it’s an online travel company offering eco-friendly holiday ideas.

The firm is one of the fastest growing travel agencies in the country, with business doubling to over £20m turnover in the last year. Not a tour operator itself, the company puts customer in direct contact with the tour operators that offer the ‘greenest’ holiday options, for which they in turn receive a commission.

Funded with an initial outlay of £5000, the firm was launched in the face of the dot.com crash, eventually raising an additional £40,000 to get things off the ground. Although today, socially aware ‘green’ businesses are the trend, the same level of public feeling didn’t exist when responsibletravel.com first launched. As Justin explains: “It’s a lot easier these days to start a social enterprise. The World’s favourite colour is now green, but when we started we didn’t have that strong backdrop to start our business.”

But can the desire for international travel exist hand in hand with the desire to stay ‘green’? Justin believes it can: “However careful you are when picking your destination, you still have to fly to get there. We were the first travel agent in the UK to say ‘look, you just have to fly less’. Our aim is to be to travel what organic is to food.”

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[ International Travel – the Eco-Friendly Way ]