ABTA – The Travel Association and Deloitte are collaborating on a new project which will help advance the industry’s understanding of climate change, the impact it will have on travel businesses and the actions needed to reduce global emissions.

Over the next year ABTA and Deloitte will be collaborating on a range of activities that will help ABTA Members understand climate change, what decarbonisation looks like across the industry - for hotels, aviation, cruise, ground transport and tourist destinations, and how their businesses can deliver meaningful change.

Together ABTA and Deloitte aim to engage senior leaders from ABTA Member travel companies on climate change and provide the support to develop a meaningful response to the crisis. The project will build on the work from ABTA’s Tourism for Good report.

The project was launched at ABTA’s Decarbonising Tourism event, where people from across the industry came together to hear about the industry’s action to transition towards net zero.

Mark Tanzer, Chief Executive of ABTA – The Travel Association said:

“Climate change is a global threat and the travel industry, along with all other businesses and government, has an important role to play in reducing carbon emissions. We have seen some good progress in recent years – including progress towards the development of sustainable aviation fuels and a number of businesses across travel and tourism setting targets and reporting carbon reductions, but that work needs to be scaled up and continue as a matter of urgency.

“Through this collaboration we want to further develop the industry’s understanding of climate change and engage senior leaders in what they need to be thinking about for their businesses and the meaningful actions they can take.”

Alistair Pritchard, Lead Partner for Travel & Aviation at Deloitte said:

“With the imperative to transition to net zero we are collaborating with ABTA on driving sustainability and addressing climate change in the sector. We recognise that the industry has been through an extremely challenging period and recovery is an immediate focus, but we hope we will be able to support ABTA members and the wider travel eco-system understand and tackle the transformative changes that businesses need to undertake.

“Our collaboration will involve bringing greater clarity for the sector on the changes required to help business leaders plot their course to a more sustainable future.”

As part of the project, Deloitte hosted ABTA’s ‘Delivering Sustainable Travel’ conference on 2nd March. The event was aimed at providing travel businesses of all sizes with practical advice on how to take action to deliver sustainable practices across their organisation.