Eco-tour company Natural Habitat Adventures has launched a new program to help its clients offset the climate impact of their air travel.
"Our polar bear adventures in northern Canada are some of our most popular trips, offering an unusually personal view of these amazing animals," says Ben Bressler, Natural Habitat Adventures founder and director. "Yet the very activity that Natural Habitat Adventures promotes -- tourism -- is threatening its own survival, as travel-related activities account for nearly one third of worldwide greenhouse gas emissions. And air travel is one of the most notorious polluters."
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MyClimate is helping Natural Habitat Adventures address these issues by helping minimize the climate impact of its operations while at the same time offering more climate friendly travel options to its clients.
The program allows clients to calculate their trip's greenhouse gas "costs" right on the company's
Web site. Travelers can then choose to neutralize their climate related impacts by purchasing a MyClimate "ticket." Natural Habitat Adventures matches up to half the cost of a fully-offset "ticket." The money is then invested in renewable energy and energy efficiency projects that reduce an equivalent amount of emissions elsewhere.
For example, travelers can neutralize the climate impact of a flight that emits 1.5 tons of greenhouse gases by purchasing a MyClimate "ticket" for $16 which might then be invested in solar ovens in Africa, reducing the need to import diesel fuel that would emit the equivalent amount of emissions as the flight in question. So with the matching option, the traveler only pays $8 to offset their full climate impact, and Natural Habitat Adventures pays the remaining $8.
"It's possible that some U.S. tour operators are offsetting their internal carbon emissions," Krahenbuhl continues, "but through MyClimate, Natural Habitat Adventures is raising the industry standard by offsetting all of their operations-related greenhouse gas impacts -- not just their carbon emissions -- while at the same time actively helping their clients to follow suit."
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