The Carbon Literacy Project is a low-carbon culture change project, working with everyone where they live, work and study. It is founded on a day-long training experience that leaves participants informed, empowered, inspired and taking their own actions to help resolve the climate emergency. Educating your team about carbon emissions is one of the most effective ways to engage your workforce and lower your company’s carbon footprint in the long term. ecollective have developed travel industry specific training that we have delivered for our members. This comprehensive 8-hour accredited course helps you develop the skills to identify and deliver climate action for your business. Following assessment, your team will become carbon literacy certified by the Carbon Literacy project. Contact us to register your interest.

Since our inception in 2020, we have partnered with ecollective, whose down to earth, no-nonsense approach to carbon resonated with us here at The Conscious Travel Foundation. ecollective use science-based tools to accurately measure the entire carbon footprint of your business efficiently and without fuss, presenting the data in an easily digestible format and help you build a strategy to reduce your carbon footprint until you reach Net-Zero. Using their knowledge of decarbonisation rates in the travel industry and where your organisation’s carbon hotspots lie, we will recommend the most effective carbon reduction strategies. Contact Charlie and the ecollective team to find out more.

The Climate Fund is open to members of The Conscious Travel Foundation, with three different tiers of contribution. You can choose to contribute to the core Climate Fund as selected by The Foundation, or create your own portfolio of projects with a branded platform for your business. Whichever you choose, your contributions will be linked to The Conscious Travel Foundation so we can track impact across all our members.

The Climate Fund was created with travel agent, operators, and sales and marketing members in mind. These were the member groups that expressed particular interest in carbon mitigation solutions for unavoidable emissions after reduction — particularly flights and transfers for client journeys, press trips and events .

Whilst our fund is open to all members, one of the main barriers to carbon reduction is cost, as it involves significant outlay to take action such as installing solar panels, boosting insulation, buying heat exchange units and switching to an electric fleet of vehicles. As recommended by ecollective, hotel and lodge members, and DMCs with their own inventory, would be best to spend the money on making a tangible difference to their carbon footprint first and foremost. Ringfence the money you would have spent on quality projects and save to invest in your eco-credentials and resilience, before looking to invest in biodiversity and repair projects.

No, the goal of our climate fund is not to claim that our members’ carbon emissions have been “offset”. Rather than being a “compensation” approach, its goal is to contribute to our global efforts to achieve net zero carbon emissions. We have aligned the programme with the Science Based Target Initiative’s (SBTi) ‘Above and Beyond’ Beyond Value Chain Mitigation framework. Members can choose to ensure that their carbon emissions are covered by verified carbon credits under this scheme.

No. There is no way to guarantee that the impact of carbon emitted has been ‘erased’ permanently, so we don’t support carbon neutral or similar claims. What this scheme does is allow members to contribute to high-impact climate projects that mitigate their emissions alongside their efforts to reduce them.

To give our members confidence in the projects they can fund and to make it as easy as possible to start, TCTF has created a standard project portfolio of high impact projects. Members who select the bespoke plan can choose their own projects from the entire Pinwheel portfolio.

We have chosen projects with the highest likelihood of having real and lasting impact. For example, we have selected enhanced rock weathering and biochar carbon removal projects, because the carbon they remove is safely stored for over 1000 years. The greenhouse gas destruction project seeks out and destroys important greenhouse gases and destroys them forever. And in seagrass restoration and with regreening in Africa with bunds we’re removing carbon, whilst also delivering essential biodiversity and human well-being co-benefits.

Pinwheel carefully filters and assesses projects to ensure that they are proper and impactful. Pinwheel undertakes detailed impact rating and due diligence of each project to establish that they are a) delivering high impact work, b) undertaken by proper organisations that are properly constituted and governed and, c) manage risk appropriately for their project type.

Carbon offsetting and carbon credits have become the subject of controversial debate, from concerns over additionality and effectiveness, to credits being a licence to pollute. The offset approach, based on compensation for hard to abate emissions, is increasingly being replaced with beyond value chain mitigation (BVCM) as set out by the Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi).

Within BVCM, contribution approaches are high impact and lower risk, as they focus on funding projects with the emphasis on making impact, rather than the accumulation of carbon credits to enable a (now discredited) carbon neutral claim.

There are three ways you can create the budget for this, all of which are approved by Science Based Targets Initiative:

1. By linking your budget to your carbon emissions: calculate your carbon emissions and apply a price per tonne to create a budget. Where internal carbon fees are used the key is to set that price at a high enough level to allow you to fund appropriately high-quality projects.

2. By linking your budget to your revenues or profits: this means as your business grows, so does your funding of projects.

3. By setting a fixed budget: this means you make a guaranteed contribution to project funding every year.

The method you choose will likely reflect the nature and needs of your business. The Conscious Travel Foundation and Pinwheel are happy to support members as they make these decisions.

Using a carbon price or fee to create your budget is highly recommended by the Science Based Target Initiative (SBTi), but is not the only way to do this. The key is to set a budget that is right for your businesses. Where internal carbon fees are used, the key is to set that price at a high enough level to allow you to fund appropriately high-quality projects. Conscious Travel Foundation and Pinwheel are happy to support members as they make these decisions.

90% of your contribution will go directly to the projects, with 10% kept for monitoring and evaluation which is split between TCTF and Pinwheel. This programme is delivered through direct funding of projects, to ensure transparency and that funding reaches the people delivering the projects on the ground. Pinwheel does not acquire or trade carbon credits with the purpose of selling them at a higher value at a later date.

Yes. You will receive the discount TCTF member rate from the month you join the Foundation.

Members must contribute at least £1,000 to projects, with the additional platform and management fee starting at £600/annum, so the minimum cost to participate is £1,600/annum.