It’s been called “The Greta Effect” – an inexorable move towards more sustainable practices by industry and individual citizens following the high-profile protestations of 16-year-old Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg, who has become the face of a movement.
Even the International Air Transport Association (IATA) has jumped on the bandwagon, with the organization that represents 290 airlines that comprise 82 percent of global air traffic calling on governments in Europe to “seize the opportunity” to create a sustainable aviation industry that protects the environment and increases connectivity opportunities for Europe’s citizens.
The call came at the opening of Wings of Change Europe – a recent gathering of aviation stakeholders in Berlin, Germany, where the role of aviation in the continent’s integration was “top of mind.”
“Europe is now connected by 23,400 daily flights, carrying one billion people a year. And the same spirit of optimism that forged the new Europe 30 years ago (after the fall of the Berlin Wall) should be turned towards conquering the challenge of sustainability in a positive way,” said Alexandre de Juniac, IATA’s Director General and CEO.
“We’re seeing the beginning of The Greta Effect, where airlines and agents and operators are… pulling back,” says Caroline Bremner, head of research for global market analytics company Euromonitor International, who identified such actions as one of its “mega trends” in travel in the next five years at the World Travel Market in London.
Bremner points to a recent advertising campaign by KLM, in which the Dutch carrier urged consumers to “fly responsibly,” and even asked viewers in an online video: “Do you always have to meet face to face? Could you take the train instead?”
The video’s narrator cheekily added, “No actual flights were taken in the making of this film.”
Acknowledging that “We all have to fly every now and then” and “we realize aviation is far from sustainable today” the airline has issued a “Fly Responsibly” commitment on its website that vows to take a “leading role in creating a more sustainable future for aviation.”
Citing “shared responsibility,” the airline promises “to lead the industry in delivering the economic and social value of network aviation in a sustainable way,” but also urges its customers to compensate for their carbon footprint through the airline’s CO2ZERO compensation service, which funds tree planting in countries like Panama, and to “explore other options” for short hauls.
“We’re in this together… We cannot do it alone,” says the airline.
While Thunberg wasn’t the first to complain, and may not be directly responsible for KLM’s actions, her headline-making is at the forefront of a movement that is clearly having an effect, with the teen having addressed the United Nations, written a book, inspired student protests globally, and even been nominated for a Nobel Prize.
Indeed, more and more western travellers are choosing not to fly, with a July-August survey by Swiss bank UBS reporting that one in five of its 6,000 respondents are reducing flight travel by at least one trip a year directly because of climate change concerns. Another 27 percent said they were considering cutting back, influenced no doubt by the growing practice of “flight shaming.”
UBS predicts that declining passenger rates will reduce the number of flights in the European Union by 1.5 percent per year.
Meanwhile, nations like Germany have announced plans to hike air taxes while reducing those for train tickets.
“With the pace of the climate change debate, we think it is fair to assume that these trends are likely to continue in developed markets,” said UBS analyst Celine Fornaro.
“We’ve been talking about sustainability in the travel industry for years, but what’s really interesting is consumers are waking up,” observes Bremner. “Globally, 59 percent of consumers say that they’re worried about climate change. And now you have a 16-year-old (Thunberg) with a very strong message, mobilizing children around the world. Things are changing!”
As for IATA, the organization says that while commercial flying accounts for two percent of all global carbon emissions (according to the Air Transport Action Group), it has cut average emissions per passenger journey in half compared to 1990 and continues to invest tens of billions of dollars into more efficient aircraft, more efficient operations, and the development of sustainable aviation fuels.
“More importantly,” IATA adds, “the industry is committed to reducing its environmental impact even further,” including halving 2005 carbon emissions levels by 2050 in line with the goals of the Paris climate agreement.
However, to do so, IATA says governments must accelerate carbon reductions by encouraging investment in sustainable fuels, new technologies, and improvements to air traffic control.
“Unfortunately, European governments are focusing on collecting taxes rather than reducing emissions,” says IATA’s de Juniac. “Taxation is a crude and inefficient method for covering environmental costs. And it picks a fight with the wrong enemy. The goal must not be to make flying unaffordable. Neither should it be to cripple industry and tourism, which creates jobs and drives development. Flying is not the enemy – it is carbon.”
Government policies should aim to help people fly sustainably,” says de Juniac.
Still, such bickering, blaming and compromising is fuelling Thunberg’s forceful message.
“You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words,” she said to delegates at the United Nations. “People are suffering, and people are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction. And all you can talk about is money and fairytales of eternal economic growth. How dare you!”
“Perhaps the most dangerous misconception about the climate crisis is that we have to ‘lower’ our emissions,” she has also said. “Because that is far from enough… The fact that we are speaking of ‘lowering’ instead of ‘stopping’ emissions is perhaps the greatest force behind the continuing business as usual.
“This ongoing irresponsible behaviour will no doubt be remembered in history as one of the greatest failures of humankind.”
Yet, despite the Swedish teen’s considerable number of opponents (including politicians, business executives and climate change deniers), and the more understandable desire for industry to balance growth/profit with sustainability, consumer behavioural patterns like flight chill are pushing and pulling the travel industry towards change, even if, like KLM, it’s one business at a time.
In British Columbia, niche adventure sailing company Outer Shore Expeditions has been carbon neutral since 2014.
Noting that the travel industry is under “greater scrutiny than ever” founder Russell Markel, a marine ecologist, says, “I wanted to create something that does good for the world; something that helps people understand what’s going on in our oceans. This is our home, our planet, and just getting people thinking about it and through direct experiences – providing first-hand knowledge of the ecosystems and issues – goes a long way towards creating change.
“Being carbon neutral in the simplest sense means we purchase carbon credits to offset our emissions, but obviously the best thing is to reduce our carbon footprint in the first place,” says Markel.
To that end, he says, a prime strategy is to limit the range of his vessel Passing Cloud wherever possible. “As diesel is our biggest source of carbon gas emissions, on a trip by trip basis we try to sail as much as possible.
“Sometimes,” he says, “that means we travel less so we can sail more.”