What to consider when calculating your carbon footprint
(for tour operators)

In the first year of measuring your carbon footprint you don't have to be perfect. See this list as the starting blocks. Starting to measure a few areas is better than delaying the project.

(Feel free to request edit access if you’d like to make your own copy!)

This is what a small tour operator should measure in order to calculate their total carbon footprint:

🏢 The office

• How much electricity has been used in the last year. (ideally in kWh)
• Who’s the office energy supplier?
• How’s the office heated? If it's not by electricity, you'll need to find out how much oil or gas has been used in the last year.

🚗 Company owned vehicles

• How many miles done or fuel used in a year by company owned cars?

✈️ Staff business travel

• How many flights has the company paid for in the last year? (Employees only)
• What was the class and the two airports travelled between?
• How many hotel nights have been booked in the last year for the team? Which country were they in?
• How many miles/km have been travelled by car, train, ferry, etc? (Paid for by the company.) (Not in company owned cars)
• If the distance in the car is unknown, please find out how much the employees have expensed for business travel. If there is ambiguity, always overestimate.
• Include any fam trips you've taken.
• If the staff business trip includes activities or multiple meals, these should be included, but most companies are not including these in their calculations for business travel.

👕 Merchandise

If merchandise is lower than 1% of your revenue you can do a basic calculation. Estimated quantity of items sold, type of merchandise and primary material (paper, cotton, etc).

✉️️ Post and brochures

• This is calculated by weight and type of materials used in the brochure.

(If it's a small amount, use money spent on post.)

🏠 Working from home

• How many days were worked at home by employees in the last year?
• How many of these employees have a renewable electricity supplier?
• Which country are they working from?

🏖️ Trips

(The tricky part, start with just calculating one)

• Calculate the footprint of your top-selling trip.
• Include everything included as part of the trip (e.g meals).
• Start with flights, transfers, hotels, trip leaders, meals and activities, in that order.
• Contact charlie@ecollectivecarbon.com who is more than happy to explain over a ‘no obligation’ call.

🚅 Commuting

• How many journeys did each employee take last year?
• What’s the average distance of one journey?
• What’s the most common form of transport used?

🌐 Website

• This is calculated based on the number of visitors to your website over a year and the amount of data transferred for each visitor. There are some handy websites that can help with this.

If you get to this stage, well done! Carbon, much like sustainability, is never a job done. There are other elements to include in your carbon footprint but you've started - the most important thing we can all do.

charlie@ecollectivecarbon.com

We measure the carbon footprint of travel companies.
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