Tourism needs to show it is playing its part

New UNWTO report to support climate action in the tourism sector

UNWTO has released a new report highlighting the progress that global tourism has made in measuring greenhouse gas emissions as well as the challenges the sector still faces.

As more and more organizations make commitments through the Glasgow Declaration on Climate Action in Tourism and engage in measurement towards target setting and decarbonization, it will become increasingly important that the tourism sector reaches consensus over how it approaches measurement, and that the methodologies and tools are in place to facilitate the rapid and urgent acceleration of engagement. These tools will be needed to engage and mobilize the sector, but also to track its essential progress towards the commitments it has made for 2030 and beyond.

Measurement of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is key for climate action. However, the tourism sector as the value chain is complex, diverse and overlapping, making sure measurement challenging. The new report “Climate Action in the Tourism Sector: An Overview of Methodologies and Tools to Measure Greenhouse Gas Emissions” was developed by UNWTO with support from the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Nuclear Safety and Consumer Protection of Germany (BMUV) and is released in collaboration with UN Climate Change (UNFCCC). It focuses on three areas – accommodation, tour operators and destinations – with the following findings:

1. Accommodation has the largest number of methodologies and specifically-designed tools, followed by tour operators
2. Destinations face the greatest challenges when it comes to engaging in measurement
3. There is little consensus over the differing responsibilities and boundaries of stakeholders, or over metrics used when organisations measure emissions

Recommendations for better GHG measurements

While noting that measurement of GHG emissions in tourism is still in its early stages, the report found a new generation of tools and resources is emerging. These focus on enabling easy access and making use of commonly available data sources, showing progress towards integrated measurement and targeted guidance for more efficient reporting and more effective decarbonization efforts.

Among its key recommendations, the report calls for:

1. Tailored guidance for different stakeholder groups (destinations, accommodation, tour operators) to be developed
2. Achieving a balance between the need to be able to accurately measure and the priority to scale up engagement, efficiency and progress
3. Promoting the benefits of measurement by showcasing evidence-based changes in practices and advancing climate risk valuations to mobilize support

The measurement of progress is essential at multiple levels; and tourism needs to show it is playing its part. As a complex and multi-faceted sector, it needs to understand where the biggest challenges remain and where progress is being driven. At a destination and company level, it is essential to support and highlight the good work of those who are making the commitments, and to enable people to understand what is having the most impact so that investment and energy is not wasted on fruitless endeavours. As a counterpoint to this, it is only through transparent measurement and accounting that greenwash can be avoided.

Advancing tourism knowledge

The overview builds on the results of the first Global Survey on Climate Action in Tourism, which led to the identification of more than 50 methodologies and tools, with their subsequent assessment against a set of criteria and in-depth interviews and working group sessions with experts from across the sector. With this new report, UNWTO aims to provide guidance regarding the measurement of GHG emissions, accelerate climate action and to support the implementation of the commitments launched in November 2021 through the Glasgow Declaration on Climate Action in Tourism.

Most importantly though, it is essential to ensure that the challenges around measurement cease being a barrier to climate action – measuring emissions is not, of itself, enough. It is only useful as a tool towards effective emission reduction. As a consequence, there is a risk that doubt as to how or what to measure impedes action on emission reduction; and the current situation regarding methodologies and tools for measurement should not impede commencing action on decarbonization. The sector knows the primary causes of the carbon footprint for tourism businesses, and the need for rapid energy and operational transitions.

Whether through the lived experiences in our destinations, or the ever more urgent news being brought from around the world, this has to be the decade not just of measurement, but of urgent climate action.