100% Carbon Absorption

100% Carbon Absorption

We absorb 100% of the carbon footprint generated by our client and staff flights and ground transportation through our financing of large reforestation projects around the world. Since 2009, our participation - alongside eight European groups - in the new €100m Livelihoods Carbon Fund combats climate change by taking a highly practical approach designed to have maximum social and economic benefit in destinations on the front line. We believe we were the first company in the UK travel market to take such a step.

How does carbon absorption work?

Today, air transport accounts for 3% of global greenhouse gas emissions. While technological advances should hopefully allow us to travel cleanly in future, currently the best solution (while continuing to travel) is to absorb the CO2 emissions generated by travel through tree planting. By financing reforestation projects around the world, Original Travel and the wider Voyageurs du Monde group contributes to the absorption of carbon dioxide worldwide. Together the group plants 7,400 trees per day, which equates to 2.7 million trees a year.

What is carbon neutrality?

Each trip has a measurable impact on global warming. We evaluate the amount of CO2 emissions related to each of our travellers and work out the number of trees that need to be planted to absorb the correct amount of CO2.

IPCC Goals

According to the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), we need to reduce our CO2 emissions by 50% by 2030 to stay below the critical threshold of global warming (+1.5 ° C). The aim is then to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 - an ambitious goal but one that is achievable if all countries and industries begin taking action today.

Case study
India mangroves
Sundarbans, West Bengal

India's Sundarbans is the largest estuarine forest in the world but the mangroves are rapidly disappearing due to climate change. Our project (verified by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change) aims to plant more than 16 million mangrove trees to protect the local communities' homes and farmlands from flooding and to restore local biodiversity.