THE desire to travel is hard to reconcile with sincere consideration towards the environment as a Gen Z-er. However, innovative product offerings are helping bridge the gap between the two worlds.
Growing up as a global citizen
Travelling across borders has been an integral part of my life from a very young age. At just five years old I migrated for the first time from Bangladesh to Finland. From then on travelling became a common thread throughout my childhood: every summer, my family and I would fly to Bangladesh to reunite with my grandparents and extended family. Growing up with both my friends in Finland and my cousins in Bangladesh, I naturally began to take on the identity of a global citizen.
Eager to experience new places I started saving up to take trips of my own during school breaks, travelling across Europe with my friends. After graduating from high school I flew halfway across the world to begin university in Singapore, in one of the many flights I have taken in my lifetime.
Realising the carbon conundrum
Growing up I liked to think of myself as an environmentally-conscious individual. Prompted by my father, an academic in the field of sustainability, I engaged with several sustainability-oriented civic society organisations in Finland from a young age.
However, as I learned more about the environmental impacts of flying, I realised the inevitable ethical inconsistencies of being both a “global citizen” and an environmentally conscious individual. I could no longer ignore the irony of how l helped me learn more about the world, yet in the process, I was harming the very environments I sought to explore.
Last year I mapped my annual carbon emissions, and to my great surprise, I estimated that travel accounted for almost 20% – one fifth! – of my annual emissions. The vast majority of which was accounted for by my annual round trips between Singapore and my home country, Finland. I was faced with the inevitable conundrum: how can I broaden my horizons and experience more of the world without polluting it in the process? Could I justify my desire to travel and seek new experiences and environments while knowing the great carbon footprint I was leaving behind?
Choosing to travel sustainably
I am not alone in this quandary: in a survey conducted in 29 markets, Booking.com finds that Gen Z individuals are overwhelmingly concerned about the environmental impacts of travel compared to previous generations.
54% of the Gen Z-ers surveyed consider the environmental impact on destinations when making travel decisions, and 63% of them consider sustainable travel options when planning and booking their travel. This certainly holds true for me. For instance, when traveling through Europe, I did my best to travel by bus or train instead of by air to reduce my carbon footprint as much as I could.
While researching flight alternatives for my Europe travels, I came across Green Tickets, a Dutch startup providing customers with sustainable route planning solutions for travel within the EU. Their platform suggests different travel route options by comparing emissions footprints and recommends tickets for each option. The company considers several factors that contribute to emissions such as mode of transportation and time of day.
Online travel agencies have also begun creating sustainable travel experiences for all. Kynder is a San Francisco-based startup that highlights travel accommodation that care about their staff, their community, and the planet. Among the various eligibility criteria for hospitality establishments, prominent ones include green practices and sustained involvement with local communities. Together, route planning solutions and online travel agencies facilitate the desire for sustainable travel experiences that Gen Z-ers seek.
Airlines are the final puzzle in creating sustainable travel
Revamping air travel remains the final puzzle piece in creating a truly sustainable travel ecosystem. To achieve this, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) and several member carriers are committed to reducing net carbon emissions in the aviation industry by 50% by 2050, compared to 2005 levels. The main facilitators of this change will be the development of aircraft technologies and sustainable aviation fuels, which various companies are pushing forward.
The Lufthansa Group has been one of the first aviation conglomerates to take on this challenge and position sustainability at the forefront of their business. Compensaid is their digital platform for carbon-neutral flying, which empowers customers to offset their flight emissions by paying an additional amount for the use of sustainable aviation fuel on Lufthansa flights. Furthermore, the funds collected also contribute towards planting trees to offset carbon. Since its launch in 2019, Lufthansa’s initiatives have offset over 11 kilotonnes of carbon.
Signol is a startup innovating behavioral solutions to encourage more sustainable flying. Their proprietary app acts like a “fitbit for work” for pilots, providing nudges that foster more efficient in-flight decisions. Managers can then take specific precautionary measures for issues in crafts, routes, and schedules before they arise. The app’s insights are useful to the airline as a whole, providing carriers with both an understanding of their energy wastage patterns, as well as simple staff training recommendations to prevent unnecessary energy loss. Since its founding in 2017, Signol has saved 24 kilotonnes of carbon emissions, and several aircraft captains have reported being happier in their jobs.
Reconciling travel and sustainability
At the end of the day, travel provides a unique opportunity to create innovative solutions for a growing environmentally-conscious market. Today, individual consumers have to make tough decisions for sustainable travel: are we willing to pay higher rates or take slower modes of transportation to offset our emissions? However, the future shows great promise for aircraft carriers, OTAs, and tech startups to work together to make sustainable travel easier, smoother, and more affordable for all.
• Featured image credit: Petmal/Getty Images
