Ethical Travel: Rules to Fly By

In a recent blog, we wrote that "Air travel is the most damaging form of travel when it comes to global warming -- yet most of us 'social change agents' depend on it for our professional work. It’s time to stop avoiding the practical and ethical dilemmas." And we shared an initial set of “ethical travel” standards for social change agents to use to decide when to travel and when not to travel. Since then, others have shared their ideas for ethical travel.

Here's our first update on Rules to Fly By--carbon dieting for high-flying change agents.

1. Curb your enthusiasm. Only travel by air when it is essential for building of social capital for future collaboration (across space) or working on large, complex problems with a large number of people.
2. Set low-footprint goals. Set an annual limit for air travel miles.
3. Pay to play. Make routine payment of "offsets," especially those that promote justice/community development objectives, as well as reduce carbon production. E.g., send your "carbon mitigation capital" to organizations in regions that use less than 2 tons per capita per year. When you organize a convening event, make offset payments a part of the underlying cost of the event.

4. Be a "whole" traveler. Use public mass transportation as part of your travel plan. (It can take longer so it means planning trips so you actually have the time to use public transportation.) Use hotels and conference centers that are reducing their carbon footprint. If renting a car, use agencies that are greening their fleets. 

5. Be here and there. Create and use robust on-line, video-interactive conferencing tools. Meeting and collaboration technologies are effective up to a point in many but not all circumstances. Face to face meetings, discussions and shared experiences are invaluable to many of us.

Kathy Dragon offered a number of insights about the challenges of ethical travel:

• Consumers traveling for vacation purposes are not interested in feeling guilty about their travels. They're on holiday! They want to enjoy their experience which includes using plush towels and wonderful bath products. It is a luxury they often don't have at home.  Many argue correctly that the "towel" issues is much more about how the the hotels wash their linens than about how guests use them.
• Business travelers are far more interested in convenience. For all of us who travel for a living I think it is safe to say that airline travel has lost any mystery and excitement it may once have had. The very thought of an airport now far worse that going to the dentist.  Anything that makes this journey to our destination easier and less unpleasant will be used. Business travelers are focused on getting in and out with as little personal headaches as possible. Public transportation to/from airports is neither convenient nor well communicated.  Trying to negotiate rail and bus options is complicated enough for the budget traveler and even cities such as NY and Chicago have done a poor job.
• Corporations who initiate green travel policies and wield enough status to encourage "green" rental fleets and "green" hotels partners are a start.  It will be interesting to see if this can translate into preferred carriers such as Virgin America's who's young fleet of planes are arguably very efficient in both fuel consumption and emissions.  Cities focused on ease of public transportation are improving their methods of communication via tools and applications which live on handheld devices.

Let us know what you and your organization are doing on this issue.