Climate Emergency Declaration

Fair Voyage was amongst the first travel agency to sign and support the Tourism Declares A Climate Emergency initiative in early 2020. As a result, we have publicly committed, and remain committed, to the following five actions:

1. Developing a ‘Climate Emergency Plan’ detailing our planned response.
2. Transparently sharing progress publicly every year.
3. Ensuring our plan focuses on cutting carbon emissions, in line with current advice from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change stating that, by 2030, we need to cut global carbon emissions to 55% below their 2017 levels to keep the planet within 1.5 degrees of warming.
4. Working together with competitors, suppliers and partners to share best practice and grow the community.
5. Advocating for system change across the industry and calling for urgent regulatory action to accelerate the transition towards zero carbon air travel.

Open Collaboration

We encourage and value open dialogue and cross-sectoral collaboration to gain valuable insights on what action and measures we can take to alter the negative impact of travel and increase the positive impact tourism can have. We work together with experienced professors and reputable universities to research the potential of carbon offsetting and we get expert views to find the best solution on the type of trips we want to promote.

Transparency and Information Sharing

When we started our research in early 2019, we were not able to locate any reputable and transparent studies comparing carbon and greenhouse gas ("GHG") calculators, fair offset prices, or most meaningful green investment projects. As we did not want to risk participating with "greenwashing", we initiated our own research, both in-house and in collaboration with the University of Lucerne. On our website, we are transparently sharing our findings and climate action, for the benefit of all.

Emphasize Slow Travel

We encourage travelers to travel less, stay at least two weeks in a destination and make their trip count. All our trips are operated by socially and environmentally responsible local partners that work hard to empower local communities, conservation projects, education, infrastructure and much more through the revenues coming from tourism.

Promote Green Destinations

Eco-tourism can be a force for good to restore and protect our biodiversity and forests that are so vital for a healthy climate and our global sustainability. We collaborate with Green Destinations and similar sustainable destination initiatives globally to promote the world's most sustainable eco-tourism projects and help travellers contribute directly to biodiversity conservation when traveling.

Offset the Climate Impact of our Trips

We acknowledge the environmental impact of travel and offset the carbon footprint of all our trips from 2020. To be able to do so accurately and conservatively, we committed significant time and resources to our carbon neutral project. We conducted extensive research in 2019, shortlisted the best solutions and developed an in-house prototype in 2020. We implemented our solution from 2021, effective for all our trips from 2020, following our periodic footprint calculation and offset approach. In addition, we plan to create more immediate transparency for each single trip on our website, in line with our technical implementation schedule.

Encourage Travelers to Purchase Sustainable Aviation Fuel

In addition to our carbon and GHG offset solution for each trip, we encourage travelers to purchase Sustainable Aviation Fuel, which we consider a more meaningful and fairly priced compensation and investment compared to traditional climate protection projects. Beyond flights necessary for our trips, we have also made it easy with our new Ambassador program for anyone keen to support our mission to earn reward points for referring more travelers to us, and we incentivize them to use their reward points to invest into Sustainable Aviation Fuel.

Raising Awareness

In addition to our awareness raising activities mentioned above, we also raise awareness through speaking at events or giving guest lecturers at universities and sustainable tourism training programs, we participate in lobbying by signing pledges to bring attention to important topics or issues to address within the tourism industry, and we share relevant information and engage actively on our social media channels and other communication channels.

Sustainable Sourcing

We believe that independent sustainability audits and certifications are the only way to implement sustainability in a transparent way across global supply chains. At Fair Voyage, we only source verified socially and environmentally responsible suppliers. As part of our Terms of Business, suppliers commit to become independently audited for sustainability by a curated certification body such as those accredited by the Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC).

Tourism touches all 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as set by the United Nations (UN) – from sustainable local economic development that empowers tourism workers and local communities, via conservation of nature and wildlife, through to climate action.

The Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC), created by UN agencies and prominent international conservation NGOs, has developed and manages a comprehensive set of global sustainability standards for travel and tourism. The GSTC Criteria align with all 17 SDGs. The GSTC also accredits certification bodies for conducting independent audits consistent with the GSTC Criteria.

This means that suppliers audited by a GSTC accredited certification body can reliably prove that they are operating consistent with all SDGs. Therefore, we believe that GSTC accredited certifications are the best and only way to verify the holistic implementation of sustainability on a global scale.

Alignment of Interests

Most importantly, we are making every effort to stay clear of conflicts of interest, so that we maintain the flexibility to continuously re-align our work with our vision for the peaceful and sustainable world that we want to live in.

We have fundamentally structured our legal company objectives, shareholder structure, and—during the pandemic, once again—revised our business model to ensure that we have the freedom to stay clear of legal, financial, personal, business, or other conflicts of interest.

Furthermore, we have clearly defined our values and assess our performance first and foremost not against financial or simplistic sustainability KPIs, but for our daily actions aligned with our values.

We believe that this is the only way an organization can fully align its interests with sustainability and net neutral or positive climate action.

Last updated: 28 April 2022