At first glance, travel and ecological sustainability seem to be hardly or not at all compatible on a global scale. The diverse economic and scientifically known relationships and modes of action are too complex.  Contradicting political as well as scientific views do not make it easier to find a valid point of view for yourself personally or as a company in the travel industry. Nevertheless, one thing is clear: traveling is associated with energy consumption and therefore always with CO 2 production. That cannot be put into perspective either. The basic facts, however, open the view of the underlying standards.

The global view:

The average global citizen produces 4.8 tons, each German citizen 12 tons of CO 2 per year (source 1 and 4).  With their way of life, including all kinds of travel, the German citizen generates more than double the global average.

If one looks at different regions of the world, the economically powerful G-20 countries with high per capita consumption produce fewer greenhouse gases than in emerging and developing countries with low per capita consumption but with gigantic national consumption, e.g. China, USA, India. (Source 1)

Worldwide, flying contributes around 2.7% to total CO 2 emissions. (Source 2)

The national share:

If you compare the countries, Germany generates around 2.3% of global CO 2 emissions (source 2). Of the 12 tons, 0.6 tons - around 5.3% - are accounted for by flights. The other almost 95% of German CO 2 emissions are attributable to our consumption, food, transport without air travel, heating, living and electricity.

What do we as a company conclude from this?

We are therefore convinced that the question of flying is not the top priority when it comes to climate protection, but rather the question of how we should manage the 95% of emissions from daily consumption, nutrition, living, heating and electricity consumption. This is where we see the greatest potential for change.

Consumption, nutrition, living, heating and electricity consumption are particularly controlled by one factor: the amount of available money that someone can spend on their lifestyle! After all, every expenditure, every investment and every saving leads to CO 2 emissions. Because even the money that is apparently useless in the account - also in securities - is reinvested and ends up in energy consumption in the form of production and services for global consumption, because returns and economic growth can only be achieved with energy consumption. This can be made very efficient or very inefficient. That is why emissions in Germany fall despite growth, and in other countries emissions rise alarmingly when growth is generated, from which Germany again benefits massively. See China, USA and India (examples only, source 3).

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Conclusion:

We all base our prosperity, which gives us the privilege of traveling, on international trade - especially in Germany. Tourism itself is a particularly efficient and powerful money transfer machine to return the money earned from rich countries around the world. The “world” can currently only be reached by flight in a reasonable time and with a reasonable amount of energy. That is why our prosperity also depends on flying and is not “just” an ecologically senseless activity that could simply be canceled without consequences. For this reason, we usually fly with the airlines of the destination countries on our trips, avoid international hotel chains and prefer local service providers.

CO2 pricing:

As a company, we are strongly committed to ensuring that CO 2 emissions have a price. Whether in the form of taxes or emissions certificate trading or a mixture of these, we cannot judge effectively. But we would very much like it if all emission sources were equally responsible - including aviation. But we are also convinced that it cannot even begin to solve the problem of global warming.

CO2 compensations:

Anyone who wants to offset flight emissions has many options. Technological and / or ecological approaches are in competition.

Afforestation programs as an ecological approach

Anyone who is convinced of reforestation, since reforestation is the most effective method of climate regulation - albeit only in the long term - should, in our opinion, look to a reforestation program in Central Europe, as we should also offset our CO 2 on site and not anywhere in the world. We therefore do not recommend offers that buy up tropical forest areas somewhere, as these programs cannot compensate for newly created CO 2 and only prevent CO 2 that has not yet been released from being released. In addition, we are convinced that this would be a new kind of eco-imperialism, because with our eco-claim we would compensate cheaply for the consequences of our prosperity on land in other countries.

If you want to compensate with forest, please remember how much forest would have to be afforested, which during a vacation (2-3 weeks) absorbs as much CO 2 as was released by the flight. Flying today and offsetting the CO 2 through three trees over a period of 20 years makes no sense in view of the burning climate problems of the next 10 years.

Here is an example calculation:

An 80-year-old beech tree has absorbed around one ton of CO 2 from the atmosphere in its lifespan. It therefore stores an average of 12.5 kilograms per year, which it emits back into the atmosphere when the wood rots or burns. For example, anyone who takes a flight from Frankfurt to the Canary Islands and back generates an average of one ton of CO 2 . To do this, 80 beech trees have to grow for a year or around 2000 beech trees for two weeks in order to compensate for the amount of CO 2 generated in the same period of time.

So far, no reforestation project can guarantee that the forest will remain there for 50 to 100 years, so that a positive climate effect can occur in the medium to long term. For this reason there are experts who consider afforestation to be completely unsuitable for offsetting flight CO 2 . Exception: Ethiopia planted around 400 million trees in the first eight months of 2019. Another 600 million are to follow.

Technology transfer as a faster approach

Other compensation programs therefore rely on CO 2 -saving technologies with which the greenhouse gas can be avoided quickly. For example, solar ovens for people who have to burn wood in order to be able to prepare their daily meals. Solar lamps can also achieve a lot in many ways: CO 2 savings and better educational opportunities. We therefore promote programs that follow the technological approach.

For more information on effective compensation programs: Stiftung Warentest 3/2018 names the following providers.

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If you want to give your opinion on our statement, we look forward to constructive contributions to the discussion!

Sources:

1 Federal Environment Agency

2 International Energy Agency (IEA), data for 2015

3 de.statista.com; Status 08.2019)

4 Statistical Office of the EU