Successful Meetings - January 2008 - (Page 56)

Travel & Transportation Green Yonder Airlines Offer Emissions “Offsets” for Greener Travel By Christopher Hosford While the phrase “going green” at hotels and conference centers has become popular among meeting planners, the air above these facilities continues to be filled with airplane pollutants, as attendees are shuttled to and fro. Now, responding to a growing public demand for environmentally sensitive policies and individual responsibility, numerous airlines are entering the field with their own efforts to reduce their substantial carbon footprints. To cite a few: Delta Air Lines has partnered with The Conservation Fund, a nonprofit environmental group, with travelers funding tree plantings to offset the carbon emissions generated by its airplanes. Passengers who elect to participate would pay $5.50 extra for a domestic flight, $11 for one overseas. Continental has partnered with Sustainable Travel International, another nonprofit offsetting organization, to fund—again with travelers’ voluntary contributions—“highimpact sustainable development projects.” Virgin Atlantic charges passengers a higher fee if they fly first-class, with flight attendants soliciting donations in the cabin after travelers board. Like the others, the fee is voluntary, and goes to support “clean” energy plants in India and Indonesia. “The industry has taken hold of this because of the really shocking waste that can come out of a three-day meeting,” says Alan Ranzer, executive director of Impact 4 Good, an eco-friendly team-building company based in East Hanover, NJ. “And the airlines are thinking there is a bottom-line return to this move.” Silverjet, a British carrier, is the only airline that automatically includes carbonoffset fees in every ticket sold, allowing passengers to opt-out if they choose. Industrywide, only about seven percent of passengers voluntarily opt-in to pay the fee, but if the contribution is already imposed, “80 percent to 90 percent will stay in,” says James Thomas, CEO of Vancouver, British Columbia-based Offsetters, of Silverjet’s opt-out plan. Harbour Air, the world’s largest seaplane operation based in British Columbia, is the only carrier to impose mandatory carbonoffsetting fees on its passengers with no mimegasite.com The Wild opt-out provision. Another Offsetters client, Canadian low-fare carrier WestJet, makes a corporate carbon-offset contribution of two percent for each of its passengers. A PRESSING NEED The need to do something for the environment is palpable. While the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says aviation contributes just two percent of the world’s CO2 emissions, airplane emissions are increasing by about three percent every year. The airlines calculate the contributions in essentially the same way, estimating fuel burned and emissions produced per passenger, over distance traveled. For example, Virgin Atlantic’s website calculator pegs an economy flight from New York to London as producing 1.258 tons of CO2; for this, the voluntary offsetting fee comes to $24.30. Monies go to different projects, depending on the offsetting organizations the carriers partner with. For example, the British company Climate Care funnels collected JANUARY 2008 SUCCESSFUL MEETINGS 56 http://mimegasite.com

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Successful Meetings - January 2008 Contents Editor's Note Associations Research Events Suppliers Associations On the Record Associations Suppliers Planner Spotlight Websites of the Month Management Matters Meeting the Law Personal Success Mouth for Sale Food & Beverage Professional Development On Site Pre-Event Tools of the Trade Veggie Power Tennis, Anyone? Seeing is Believing The Wild Green Yonder Game On Places & Spaces Galveston & Texas Beaches Greater Seattle Singapore Gurus

Successful Meetings - January 2008

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