Climate change is one of the biggest threats facing our planet today and the rise in cheap air travel among many other factors has contributed to the situation we now face. Luckily, there’s loads that we can do to act in a responsible and ethical way, both as a business and as a consumer.
Did you know train travel is the greenest way to get about? Europe’s network of trains are among the most extensive and environmentally-friendly in the world. For the same journey, trains generate much less CO2 per passenger than flights. In fact, according to research carried out by Eurostar, taking the train from London to Paris rather than flying cuts our CO2 consumption by a staggering 90%!
It’s just another reason to make the most of Europe’s excellent rail connections: what better way to do your bit for the planet than by travelling by rail and enjoying all the natural beauty that Europe has to offer?
Our sustainable travel ambitions go far beyond the way we get you from A to B. We also aim to minimise our carbon footprint and waste production levels within our office.
We never send out printed sales communications. Rather than having brochures we have extensive information on each route and tour online. We send all quote and trip information (with the exception of your final travel pack) by email.
Our travel packs are printed on recycled paper.
We only use Xerox Solid Ink to print our travel packs – this generates up to 90% less printing waste than more commonly-used laser printers!
We consistently monitor and review the businesses total output of carbon-based emissions to ensure we remain carbon negative. You can read more about this below.
We use Ecosia as our main browser for the office, meaning that our day to day searches help to plant trees around the world!
As well as our responsibility to the environment, we also recognise our impact on local communities as part of the tourist industry.
We develop personal relationships with our hostel/hotel partners to benefit local businesses.
We limit our trips to small groups of independent travellers – no mass travel involved.
We encourage our customers to travel with an open, respectful attitude towards fellow travellers and local residents.
We promote travel as a means of building cultural understanding.
We offer alternative suggestions for sightseeing, giving you more authentic experiences as well as the opportunity to support local businesses and mingle with city residents.
We promise to fund enough carbon capture schemes to not only counterbalance the carbon that Euroventure produces as a business but offset the same amount again, actively helping to reduce global warming.
We will continue to propose and implement schemes which can further the eco-friendly aspect of the company moving forward.
We’ve signed up to Tourism Declares, an initiative that supports tourism businesses, organisations, and individuals in declaring a climate emergency and taking purposeful action to reduce their carbon emissions as per the advice from The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to cut global carbon emissions to 55% below 2017 levels by 2030.
Like all signatories, we have committed to the following five actions:
1. Develop a ‘Climate Emergency Plan’ within the next 12 months, which sets out our intentions to reduce carbon emissions over the next decade.
2. Share an initial public declaration of our ‘Climate Emergency Plan’, and update on progress each year.
3. Accept current IPCC advice stating the need to cut global carbon emissions to 55% below 2017 levels by 2030 in order to keep the planet within 1.5 degrees of warming. We’ll ensure our ‘Climate Emergency Plan’ represents actions designed to achieve this as a minimum, through delivering transparent, measurable and increasing reductions in the total carbon emissions per customer arising from our operations and the travel services sold by us.
4. Encourage our suppliers and partners to make the same declaration; sharing best practice amongst peers, and actively participate in the Tourism Declares community.
5. Advocate for change. We recognise the need for system change across the industry and call for urgent regulatory action to accelerate the transition towards zero-carbon air travel.
Please consider also declaring at www.tourismdeclares.com, and follow on @tourismdeclares on Twitter, Facebook or Linkedin
In February 2020, Euroventure wanted to go one step further and operate as a carbon negative business – this means to not only offset the carbon that our staff and trips produce, but to reduce it by 200%, ensuring that we make a positive contribution towards the environment.
The scheme worked by contributing to a reforestation effort which will help to re-populate the vast areas of woodland lost in the 2020 Australian wildfires. This unprecedented disaster caused massive damage to Australia’s eco-system, and without efforts to re-plant and re-build the country is likely to continue to suffer as their carbon output rises dramatically. By choosing to plant trees here, we looked to help and provide crucial support to the people and wildlife who lost their homes and their livelihoods overnight.
We hold a unique position in the travel industry in that the majority of our trips are done entirely by rail, with other low-carbon methods of transport such as coaches being used where trains are unavailable.
Due to recent concerns over how effective this method of carbon offsetting is, Euroventure have suspended our objective to planting more trees, as we – and the world – continue to search for a suitable and effective method in which we can reduce and ethically offset all our emissions. Whilst our trips are largely sustainable, we remain committed to finding ways in which our business can evolve to become increasingly environmentally friendly and help our planet.
