The one thing I'd change is... by Charlie Cotton, Carbon Consultant and Founder of ecollective

Charlie Cotton, founder of carbon consultancy ecollective, says he'd like to see more companies focus on two single issues - maximising the positive impact of travel on destinations and reducing the biggest negative impact of travel.

"Focus on your superpower", says Charlie, which he says, is "bringing money from wealthy clients to amazing, beautiful destinations that they're based in", to make sure "more money stays in our local destinations that our customers visit".

Charlie says he'd like to see more companies combine this superpower with reducing their biggest negative impact - reducing the carbon footprint per customer.

I asked Charlie an to answer in less than 60 seconds, "What's the one thing you'd change in travel, given the climate and nature emergencies?" Here is his full reply:

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/581fc9_90ae8209a58d457b9731527bae299d1c/720p/mp4/file.mp4

"The one thing I would love to change would be the most common type of sustainability strategy we see in the tourism industry, which is do nothing at all.

"And I'd love to change them to do this strategy going forward, which I think can apply to over 90% of travel businesses out there.

"It would be to focus on their biggest positive impact, which for me is bringing money from wealthy clients to amazing, beautiful destinations that they're based in, as well as the negative impact of their business, which for me is their carbon footprint and combine those two things together and challenging themselves as a business to say:

"Each year we are going to increase our positive impact. We're going to make sure more money stays in our local destinations that our customers visit. And we're going to also make sure that our carbon footprint per customer comes down, year on year, on year".

"Now, I know it won't be perfect for every business out but for most companies out there, if you're unsure where to start, start there:

"Think about what's your superpower and what's your biggest negative impact, which for most will be bringing in money and start keeping that in the destination, as well as the biggest negative, which is your carbon footprint, and bringing that down per person."

🙏 Charlie

This post is part of a series of interviews with people across the travel and tourism industry, where I ask them to answer in less than 60 seconds, "What's the one thing you'd change in travel, given the climate and nature emergencies?"