Catalysing A Decade of Climate Action in Global Travel and Tourism
Good afternoon everyone I’d like to give you a warm welcome to this virtual event titled ‘Catalysing a Decade of Climate Action in Global Travel and Tourism’ to welcome us all today and without further ado I’d like to introduce Mr Ivan McKee Scottish government minister for business trade prison and enterprise allow me to extend a warm welcome to everyone here for the conference it's been a difficult time for the tourism sector globally due to the pandemic and here in Scotland we've maintained a strong focus on supporting the sector in the short term but also crucially maintaining earned medium and long-term ambitions too we believe that tourism is a force for good and it can indeed must play its role in the green recovery and it's important that we discuss innovative solutions to accelerate our progress to achieving net zero which is very much the purpose of course of today's event Scotland has committed to achieving net zero emissions by 2045 with an ambitious interim target of a 75 percent reduction by 2030. we have already halved our greenhouse gas emissions since 1990 we have shifted almost 100 percent of our electricity use so that it now comes from renewable sources our funding for energy efficiency has benefited over 150 000 households since 2013. and in less than 10 years we have funded the restoration of around 30 000 hectares of peatland and in the last three years alone have created over 32 000 hectares of new woodland we're also one of the very few countries to have set legally binding annual emissions targets for every year from now until we deliver net zero these statutory targets form the heart of an indicative national determined contribution published ahead of cop 26 where progress has been made across all parts of Scotland’s economy and society the scale and urgency of the task ahead is significant and we still must do more complacency is not an option our updated climate change plan provides a clear and credible pathway to meeting our admission to targets out to 2032 partnership will be important at home across the EU and globally in achieving and accelerating our climate ambitions I am therefore delighted to open this international facing event across public and private sectors alike many barriers aren't challenges to consider as we work towards net zero but there are fantastic opportunities for us all to as destinations as businesses and as communities in the context of this morning's launch of the Glasgow declaration this event is very much aimed at exploring in partnership the next steps for action we see many examples of good practice from around the globe and Scotland has always been an outward looking nation collaborative willing to share and be inspired in return it's my pleasure therefore to welcome you i'll be virtually to Scotland and to open this event demonstrating tourism's commitment and action to achieving net zero thank you very much for your time thank you very much minister Scotland’s net zero targets are indeed ambitious so it's great to hear about the encouraging progress uh so far we know that all sectors need to play their part so what about tourism let's hear from VisitScotland’s chairman Lord Thurso Lord Thurso good afternoon the floor is yours good afternoon to you and good afternoon to everybody else and let me add my very warm welcome to Glasgow as well around this time in about 2019 I delivered a lecture in Brussels in which I set out the ambitions that VisitScotland had for a sustainable future and so i'm really delighted to be here today two years later to introduce an event that is focused on what we and our partners and colleagues around the globe are delivering on that ever more urgent journey to net zero immigration today you'll hear for example about Scotland’s four million destination net zero program which will provide support to tourism businesses and destinations as they transition to a greener more sustainable future i'm also very proud that as an organisation VisitScotland has reduced its own carbon footprint by over 70 percent over the past nine years we truly are working to try to practice what we preach we've also had a great panel discussion later on with five destinations that are already delivering action towards net zero and i'm particularly pleased that VisitScotland is working in partnership with sustainably focused tourism bodies such as tourism declares the future of tourism coalition Necstour which represents 39 regional tourism organisation across Europe we all know why we're here cop 26 presents a unique opportunity to demonstrate the decisive action that is being taken in Scotland and around the globe to secure our future prosperity in the face of the growing climate crisis the time for talk has drawn to an end the time for action is that a big is now or as somebody put it blah blah blah is over time now for cha cha cha it is action and deeds that are required and we need to focus on sharing let's also be clear achieving net zero emissions in tourism won't be easy so it's equally important that today we look at the enablers and the barriers so that we know what the challenge is and we can use the opportunities that means we're all going to have to think differently about what kind of tourism we want about how we promote it how we deliver our product offering how we target and engage our visitors and collaborate with the industry and how we use tourism to support communities in a respectful way in Scotland almost three-quarters of our residents agree that climate change is an immediate and urgent problem and so there's a real opportunity for businesses to shout about their eco experiences and cater for the new market this morning saw the launch of the Glasgow declaration asking stakeholders around the world to take action and many of you here this afternoon including our panellists already are others want to start for me this event very much is very much about how we bring that declaration to life before I finish I must also say a big thank you to our wonderful moderator Virginia from the unwto for joining us despite her extremely busy schedule and to all of our panellists for being so willing to share your good work with everyone here today and to our key partners in this event tourism declares the future of tourism collaborate a coalition and the network of European regions for competitive and sustainable tourism I believe we have much to do I believe there are grave challenges but I believe also there is a tremendous opportunity for the force that is good that is tourism which is a force for good so thank you for joining us have a wonderful afternoon thank you so much Lord Thurso really a pleasure to be here and as you said definitely an opportunity we must grasp so thank you so much for sharing the perspective of VisitScotland I am really looking forward to hearing about the net zero program of activity I know uh it's part of VisitScotland’s climate action plan so that that would be inspiring uh to hear but first and in light of the launch of the Glasgow uh declaration we have with us uh Jeremy smith co-founder of tourism declares a climate emergency for those who may not be aware tourism declares is a global community of 377 tourism organisations companies and professionals and all of them committed to delivering climate action uh plans aligned with the need to cut emissions in half by 2030. so Jeremy is going to introduce us to the Glasgow declaration what it is what it means and how it can help guide us in the delivery of climate action whatever our business organisation or network looks like so Jeremy over to you Lord Thurso mentioned people looking to know where to start where does this start so as we look at catalysing throughout these various different sectors and how we expand this across the whole of our industry in the whole of the world I just take a moment to step back to the actual start point this began at least in my mind this beach is in northern Mozambique I was there 10 years ago staying at a remarkable lodge that is one of was one of the world's leading environmental tourism sustainable tourism destinations it was an incredible place but in April 2019 cyclone Kenneth washed in off the Indian ocean at 140 miles an hour and when within the space of five minutes 10 minutes the lodge all the work it had done and 14 villages were completely destroyed the lodge never came back people who behind the lodge are still working with the villages doing what they can to be there and in that moment I just saw the fragility of tourism that chooses so often to be in the sort of remote beautiful places that you have seen from our holding slides on each of our names but also the opportunity we have because of how we bring people from all around the world to connect to these beautiful places within a couple of weeks the first tourism declares tweet went out calling on the industry without knowing what it would mean that we needed to declare and to transform our model to something that would support communities and regenerate biodiversity over the course of the next few months conversations began particularly with myself and Alex Narracott the founder of much better adventures and then we brought in other tourism companies and by January 2020 we had 14 founder signatories that launched together tourism declares a climate emergency now November 21 we have 392 members headquartered in over 60 countries covering all sectors most importantly from the very beginning what we set out to do was to say that everyone in tourism needed to publish a plan for what it is that what their climate action would look like to publish a climate action plan that couldn't just be here's what we want to do it had to be grounded in science we have to respond to the severity of the emergency with the appropriate response and finally we have to work together we have to collaborate that's what everything that is here and this event and has been throughout the sessions that cop is about we either all succeed or we all fail so we have to work together share best practice share our challenges the 392 members are mostly small medium-sized enterprises they're businesses who really get it destinations like VisitScotland but of course we have to expand this over the last six months we've been working on the Glasgow declaration with unwto united nations environment program VisitScotland and the travel foundation to launch as Virginia said this declaration that was launched this morning it wasn't just them that came on board i'm not expecting you for one second to see who was there I just want it to be acknowledged that all these people and all these organisations brought their own expertise their own understanding these are people who work in tourism's private sector these are activists these are environmentalists these are scientists these are community groups indigenous tourism everyone fed in to make sure that somehow 800 words represented the totality of how our industry could come together and that now as of today on the one planet network website is what the Glasgow declaration looks like 800 words of commitment that summarised can be this we are shared commitment to unite all stakeholders to transform tourism we're not inventing science we're supporting the global commitment to halve emissions by 2030 and reach net zero we will consistently align our actions with the latest science and we will deliver climate action plans within 12 months of signing in other words ask with tourism to class publish a plan base it on science and work together and we've seen just in the last seven days we put this it was enabled to be signed seven days ago and in just these first seven days we've seen major companies accord's one of the largest hotel companies in the world it has 250 000 employees embarrassed intrepid Skyscanner businesses that are huge have come on board and said yes we will shift our business model we commit we are part of this major supporting organisations from around the tourism industry association of British travel agents the European tourism association the south pacific tourism organisation travelist the wttc and most significantly I think we've seen more destinations join that first move that was made by VisitScotland we see Barbados the eastern Caribbean states Kiribati Micronesia the Netherlands Norway should also be written down there panama all these states have come together to declare a climate emergency and what you see when you look at Barbados eastern Caribbean Kiribati Micronesia in particular is how fragile these places are these are the places the low-lying islands that are most vulnerable towards it they are the ones stepping up and saying now we need to make the change we need to transform and at the heart of the Glasgow declaration is exactly that language this isn't just about redesigning our businesses in order to be as profitable as possible this is saying climate change's impacts are most severely felt by underrepresented and vulnerable communities such as women indigenous communities people living with disabilities and small island states a just and inclusive transformation must prioritise their voices and needs as well as those of younger generations would otherwise pay the full price of our inaction so how do we do that we've got five pathways for plans the first pathway is measure everyone needs to measure we need to come together and align our measurements so that this industry can understand what it is doing where it should invest its energies we need to coordinate that because one thing we found is the very last understanding on how to do it or how to do it in a way that relates to how other people are trying to do it this week two steps forward are made with the launch of the net zero methodology for hotels and open source guide for tour operators to set a science-based target come to tourism declares in the next few days they'll be uploaded there they're not just with us they've been created by green view created by intrepid they're there to help tour operators and accommodation move forward of course we need to decarbonise we need to do this aligned with science already inside of the tourism declares membership inside of those who have signed the Glasgow declaration are a host of different private sector bodies and destinations pretty well whoever is working in tourism someone has committed some part of that sector is engaged and of course we need many more coming forward sharing their examples sharing their challenges so that we truly can understand what the complexity looks like and work together we have this incredible opportunity to regenerate which can boil down to the opportunity for tourism to help our visitors and our host communities experience better balance with nature in the end we call it the climate emergency we call it the biodiversity emergency but the emergency is that human beings are not living in balance with nature and when we can shift that we address pretty well every other problem there is we learn to live in a more harmonious way and tourism that takes us into these places that are better experiences when they are wonderful isn't an ideal situation to make that happen I think I’ve made this point very clearly and everyone makes a point we have to do this together we have to collaborate finally we have to ensure the finance it's all very well to draw up a plan but it can't just be a plan that gets dusty on a shelf we have to ensure that every organisation from every from the smallest to the largest has the resources and capacity to meet the objectives that they set out so what did we do finally it took two years to get to 390 or so members the Glasgow declaration has been live for a week we now have 300 already signed the more that come forward the more that sign as quickly as possible the more that bring in their experience and their knowledge the faster we will get there and we might be looking at 2030 and turning around and saying we did it thank you thank you so much Jeremy always inspiring to hear you tell how tourism declares emerged so passionately and bringing such a logic to all the pathways as you just did it was really useful to hear about the pathways that the Glasgow declaration is proposing and i'm sure that many of the those in the audience today are already delivering activities uh under one of the pathways and it would be great to hear about this later in the interactive uh session uh I’d like to shift the focus uh now a little bit uh or to deepen the focus story in in on Scotland our co-op 26 hosts VisitScotland was actually the first national tourism organisation in the world to declare a climate emergency and is now well underway in delivering a range of activities so I’d like to give the floor to Janie Neumann she's the sustainability manager at VisitScotland so she can give us an overview of destination net zero project Janie floor is yours thank you very much Virginia and yes thank you Jeremy for that that very inspirational speech and i'm very excited to be here today and to talk a little bit more about Catalysing a destination before we get started I just want to provide a little bit more background information on VisitScotland’s journey to where we are now and where we're at so obviously now cop 26 right now right here and speaking to you from Glasgow in Scotland and this is a key moment in the fight against climate change but also an opportunity for ourselves and tourism in general to step up and take action and we recognise that and a year ago we were the first national tourism organisation to join tourism declares really to showcase our ambition as well as to start working within collaboration with national and international partners and off the back of some of that collaboration with some of the key partners here today we are very fortunate to be involved as members of the drafting committee for the Glasgow declaration which as you know has been launched this morning which is incredibly exciting and this really sets us all up to inspire and engage our visitors and our businesses to drive that action and kick start that decade and of climate action which is necessary and in Scotland here will support those ambitious targets so net zero by 2045 that you heard about before and those targets really can draw a clear line through our Scotland outlook 2030 tourism strategy which is very much focused on delivering a responsible tourism for a sustainable future and the current tourism recovery plan but we we're definitely developing more details around that which I want to share with you and transitioning to net zero is a journey and it's a journey for all of us and so that's how we want to frame it because it's important a journey that everybody needs to go on but people will be at different starting places and have different resources available whether that's time money or knowledge so to make sure that we all move in the right direction with the impact that we need to have we really want to frame that journey around some key questions so things around where are we now so establishing baseline measuring and monitoring that will allow us to prioritise these actions and measure whether we're making progress and where are we going we have clear net zero targets but it's also about seeing that visualising the low carbon tourism future and looking at some of that best practice and innovation already in place how are we going to get there there's some key actions we need to take and but also as we've said before it's important to acknowledge the barriers what is stopping us is it a lack of awareness is it skills and money but also we found often it's the capacity there's a lot of commitment from businesses to undertake action but many businesses are small medium-sized businesses and that with all the pressures on them at the moment find it difficult to find that time to take action and know where to start so that's why providing them with advice and support and on how to start as well as the funding available and working together is key to take action and you'll see how this overall journey aligns with the five pathways of the Glasgow declaration so just to briefly touch on some of the key areas that where we that we need to undertake to get there so to speak clearly our buildings and transport here in Scotland we need to address as a priority with over 50 percent of territorial carbon emissions coming from those areas so looking at energy efficiency and renewable as well as promoting walking and cycling and looking at electric vehicles and hydrogen as alternatives but especially in the tourism hospitality sector considering the impact of food waste and the opportunity to offer more plant-based diets and is also a great opportunity and Scotland is has a particularly ambitious target of 2045 because we're uniquely placed to reforest and for peatland conservation as well so that's something that the tourism industry can either get involved in or also support charities that do some wonderful work here and adaptation is a topic that's sometimes not an easy one to talk about but it's important that we support businesses and our destinations and acknowledging the unavoidable impacts of climate change that will happen and the risks that it will bring but also to acknowledge potential opportunities so the destination that zero program that was mentioned before is worth almost four million a support program that's part of the overall Scottish government co-covered tourism recovery package worth 25 million but these four million are really focused to support uh towards businesses and destinations to kick start their journey to net zero and they have four key areas so as we said how are we gonna you know where are we now that research and insights peace so we're undertaking some research and with the university of Queensland and to establish that those Scottish baseline emissions for the tourism sector to know where we're starting from but also crucially asking industry let's find out from industry where they are at in their journey to net zero where they get their advice and what kind of advice they need and what their barriers are and again communicating and raising awareness and engaging all our partners through our online portal as well as a range of program of support which we'll be delivering with partners we have in Scotland to leverage all the existing advice supporting places the destinations that are key in Scotland is important for example through a destination climate action leaders pilot that will be launching soon and supporting businesses very specifically on their carbon reduction projects installing ev charge points and reducing their food waste and joining sustainable tourism certification these are all particular actions that we’re looking to kick start this decade of action but and I can only repeat everybody else's words and saying that collaboration is key to take action and here in Scotland by no means are we the only ones we're very lucky to have very supportive Scottish government and the funding but we're working with a wide range of partners across Scotland and the industry and I can only reiterate that the communication and collaboration is key and that the sharing our story and all the other stories we will hear today are fundamental to learn from each other and to you know and not just share the highlights but also the detours and the delays and the things that did or didn't work and then we can all really make progress at the pace and scale that's necessary and because tourism is a force for good and we can really appreciate that and we can also make our mark in this fight against climate change thank you thank you Janie I could not agree more on the need to collaborate and share successes and also learnings so that we really can advance uh jointly it was really great to see how you mapped the journey uh for the tourism sector towards uh net zero and also to see the partnership uh how it's working in partnership and uh obviously of course the commitment of the government when it comes to funding in order to support the green recovery so thank you so much for that great presentation with help from Laura and Keith it would be great to see uh a video that we have actually received from Gonzalo Munoz. Gonzalo Munoz is a UN climate champion uh for chile you know under the race uh to cyril and uh yeah they were quite happy about the Glasgow declaration so we're wanting to participate and we can hear what they have to say. Firstly I would like to thank all of you so much for having me here today it's a real honour to be speaking to all of you during cop26 in Glasgow on this very important agenda for sustainable tourism thank you to VisitScotland, tourism declares a climate emergency, NECSTour and the future of tourism coalition for organising this event events like this are key to driving even more collaboration and more importantly action to building a low-carbon resilient and healthy future for all it's only through radical operations radical collaboration that we will definitely achieve our goals and this is particularly important in the travel and tourism sector giving the complexity with multiple sub-sectors all around the world it's such a granular and distributed and diverse sector and as well as the size of the sector where the wttc found that in 1919 the sector contributed to 10.4 of global GDP so it means a lot in terms of how many people
are connected to the sector how diverse it is in terms of big multinationals and very small uh tourism operators for example then of course it goes from uh of course uh airlines or transport systems to of course destinations it can be either a camping or a resort or a hotel so yeah and we know as well that the sector means so much in terms of not only GDP but also in terms of greenhouse gas emissions so thank you all uh for coming together to catalyse action across travel and tourism as one of the two to united nations high-level climate action champions uh we warmly welcome the Glasgow declaration that was launched earlier today this is a pivotal step in bringing together the sector to align with our goals of having emissions by 2030 and achieving net zero by 2050 at the latest we will work very closely with this network organisations to continue aligning the Glasgow declaration with race to zero when ready we will support the network's application to the extra peer review group and hope that they will become the racist zero partners initiative for the travel and tourism sector thank you again for all the work you're doing and for having me today I really look forward to seeing the action that will be driven by this collaboration and the Glasgow declaration as many of you know this is something in it's a topic in which I put in a lot of personal energy and passion because I so well understand the impact that you drive and how much of that impact must be all about sustainability all about climate possibility positive all about regeneration all about building resilience so many people all around the world thanks so much it is now uh it's on the theme of partnership actually that I’d like to introduce our next speaker he is Manuela Alejandro Cardenete the president of NECSTouR a network of 39 tourism authorities across Europe committed to sustainable development as a way of increasing destination competitiveness okay thank you Virginia thank you for giving the flow and thank you for your passion for the rest of the conference ends so good afternoon ladies and gentlemen thank you for joining us in this collaborative event we have been organising together with visits Scotland tourism declares a climate emergency on the travel foundation of course with the valuable support of the unwto it's an it's an honour for next door for us to stand today together with these three organisations that are building up a historical momentum for the global travel and tourism industry calling for the recognition of durisin as a contributor to net zero targets and most importantly giving us a common framework which to set up our action the Glasgow declaration a commitment to a decade of during climate action what is next is something that probably you are asking next is a network for European regions for competitive and sustainable tourism next tour is the represent 39 official division authorities across Europe including 15 of the 20 most visited regions in the European union all those regions representing the diversity of the European destination profiles our strategy is aligned to the European twin transition for one of them the green and digital the sustainable development goals around the Barcelona declaration better place to live and visit we have all a shared commitment on sustainability as a driver for community building built by sorry well-being people our residents environmental protection and restoration planet our destination and competitiveness prosperity our business this is why we believe together we can contribute to generate the impact that the climate emergency required across the European territory almost fourth month ago we declared a climate emergency during the tourism declaration initiatives we wanted to we wanted to acknowledge three main things first of all that tourism is a contributor to the climate change that tourism is an industry it stands to be adversely affected by climate change and finally tourism can be part of the solution not of the problem part of the solution our declaration were released exactly the same day that the European commission approved the fit for 50 55 sorry package under European green deal we wanted to demonstrate our commitment and support for Europe’s target of becoming the world's first climate neutral continent for us the world's first climate natural destination but we also wanted to position tourism crawl and accelerate those efforts while this commitment is crucial it's nothing without the action and delivery as a network and i'm proud to share that next tour is rooted in the delivery of action that supports sustainable tourism sorry sustainable destination development since the beginning of our existence our journey started 15 years ago and today which is a key milestone with our partners our general assembly formally validated our subscription sorry to the Glasgow declaration as we were defining that main lines of our climate action plan this plan will be ready by July 2022 it will include concrete targets and deliverables which we will implement and catalyse in partnership we knew that this represented the real before and after moment for our network where to start first of all knowledge existing already in our network sharing the experience of our members that are already taking action to reduce emissions intuition and pulling knowledge to maximize their impact and encourage others to follow second point advocacy towards our regions and also towards to the European union is proud to be part of the so-called transition pathway for a more resilient innovative and sustainable tourism ecosystem which is the process lead by European commission to build the future European agenda for the two more tourism of tomorrow in this framework we share the voice of the European regions and have the opportunity to advocate for tourism being a key driver of European green deal by taking inspiration from the pathways of the Glasgow declaration we firmly believe that unless travel and tourism are not part of the European green deal we fare that near zero targets will not be met third point cooperation with our European and global partners joining the Glasgow declaration the global tourism plastics initiative and the future of tourism coalition provide us against for the Europe the developing and implementation of our climate action plan so an example can illustrate this point first of all boosting the integration of tourism in the existing regional climate action plans which are more than non-sectorial second point stimulating cooperation with the department of regional government that hold responsibility for environmental climate waste management weather management mobility something crucial to reach our industrial net zero targets third example integrating the participation of citizens to define climatisation investment for example reaching awareness with recent destination fifth example transferred the original sustainable mobile mobility strategy in the travel entering sector and finally identifying indicators to measure cover carbon footprint in our destination as well as mitigation's result this means that our climate action plan will allow will allow us to scale up existing and successful experiencing for our members and partners to this end we'll take advantage next of next year strategic alliance partnered at both European and global levels starting by visiting Scotland tourism declaration the tribal foundation and of course the unwto as newly president elected president of next tour it is my challenge and privilege to help drive forward our strategist goals in collaboration with our members and partners we have demonstrated our own value and resilience as a network during the combined crisis and trying to end its time it's really it's the same spirit of adaptation and collaboration that we need to take our net sphere charges our motto and exteriors will google further when we go together and we feel it's now very relevant than ever delivering solution requires a global effort and next door is committed to being a key player to this in this opportunity we look forward to sharing our progress with you as much as to learn from you as well a way we can catalyse and accelerate our efforts leading to a natural tourism future for our places and for our people thank you so much Virginia, Vigrginia and sorry for my the way that I have started sorry thank you thank you Manuel Mr Cardenete not to worry uh at all it was fantastic to hear you tell us how next tour is uh actually so committed to taking action and thank you so much for your leadership it's I think it's really a great model very influential uh sharing the expertise insights and good practices of your members to build a climate action plan and then using this to support so many destinations across Europe as they accelerate their efforts to towards net zero so this morning we had the European commission in the panel uh at the co-op and I really think next tour can play a key role uh as you say uh making that the green deal is really a green tourism uh deal so looking forward to collaborating of course uh on that front thank you we have uh I mean we have had wonderful welcome remarks then we've learned about the declaration we've also learned how to catalyse a destination Scotland in this case and now we've heard uh Mr Cardenete speaking about Catalysing a continent uh and collaborating for change so I think it's now time to switch to the second uh part of our session today which is the panel uh discussions so i'm really pleased to be joined by a wonderful line-up of speakers uh our panellists uh today and I invite them all to turn on their cameras now please so our panellists represent uh really a range of destination types we have a country we have a region we have a city we have a national park islands and a coastline so very diverse but at the end of the day all of them very much linked by a strategic focus on responsible development and a commitment to new zero so thanks to all for accepting the invitation to be a panellist today uh an announcement for the audience please note that this session is not open to questions and answers from the audience you will have the opportunity to ask questions later in the open forum that follows the panel in any way if you wish to post something in the chat as I said in the beginning you are always uh welcome to do so without further ado it's really our great pleasure to introduce uh senator Lisa Cummins she's the minister of tourism and international transport of the government of Barbados excuse me minister pleasure to have you with us then we have also uh Murray Ferguson director of planning and place at the Cairngorms national park authority this is the largest national park in Scotland we have also with us Maria Linde this is deputy CEO in west Sweden tourism board Arica Sears deputy director at the Oregon coast visitors association and Jos Vranken CEO of the Netherlands board of tourism and conventions so really a pleasure to have you all what I have planned for the session uh today is a couple questions that I will ask you all to reply uh as I think you will provide uh to the same topic different perspectives that that can really uh then lead us to a very rich discussion in the interactive session so uh the first question is related to the five pathways of the declaration basically uh thinking about the five pathways of the Glasgow declaration uh I’d like to know what are the top two or three actions that your organisation or destination is taking to support net zero uh targets and I’d like to start uh with you minister excellency you senator you have the floor please thank you so much for first of all inviting me to join this panel today I’ve been intrigued by the presentations which have gone before and they have shared really the standard that needs to be set for the tourism industry and uh certainly from Barbados is not just a tourism-dependent economy but we are equally a small island developing state and so the issues on the agenda and those captured in the Glasgow declaration all five of the pathways are all critical for Barbados both on our receiving side but also in terms of our partners and the countries around us and the commitments that they make i'm going to start first of all perhaps by speaking to the question of measurement in the first instance and the ability to be able to measure and to define the key elements that are affecting the tourism industry and then to further disaggregate those measurements into the different types of countries and how we are affected and so there are producers and then there are recipients then there are countries on the other side who are like Barbados and most of the countries in the Caribbean if not all of the countries in the Caribbean who are not necessarily contributing and who are measuring but we also need to measure both risk and the impact on our economies from these kinds of elements and the second part of it that I would want to speak to is a question of uh providing financing and development support for the implementation of the mitigation and the adaptation strategies this is absolutely critical so renewable energy use of water resources especially for countries like ours which are equally water scarce and the preservation of our coastlines and our renewable sources of both water and of course a generation of energy those are some of the key things that we would want to be able to participate in as part of the glacial declaration and the pathways that have been outlined thank you so much uh for such a very uh clear statement uh may I now uh prompt Murray Ferguson Murray if you could uh tell us what are the top or two or three actions that you would have in mind okay uh good afternoon everyone and thanks again for the invitation to be part of this event uh Glasgow seems to be the centre of the world this week so I should tell you that the Cairngorms national park is located about three and a half hours to the north of Glasgow and we're the largest national park in Scotland but also the largest of 15 in the uk it's quite a large landscape it includes about six percent of the Scottish landscape and I think also the one I would pick up on is a measurement and we are embark just embarked on a project of a carbon baseline assessment using a common methodology that we've developed in common with the other 14 national parks in the united kingdom and we think that's going to be very useful to us because we are consulting at the moment on our draft climate action plan and i'll put a link in the chat to that so that you can see it and we're very willing to hear feedback on that up until about the 17th of the uh December and the other uh pathway and these are so useful I think to us to provide us with a framework that I would comment on is the work on decarbonisation uh we have a very exciting project uh to do to deliver with partners over the next few years we have been working to develop this for quite a while but we effectively we have a 43 million pound project with 45 committed partners already signed up and we only had the funding confirmed within the last few months and that from a tourism perspective will see us connect our communities with really good paths so that when visitors do come here and they can travel in a much less carbon intensive way and enjoy the fantastic landscape and we also are going to be ex expanding the forest resource within the park and looking after the peatlands and we think that we'll have a double set of benefits in that it will reduce the carbon cycle but it will also improve the landscape for visitors and thereby improve the visitor experience so that's just a couple of examples thank you thank you so much uh Murray i'm sure uh quite inspiring also for other national uh parks all the actions that that you are taking I’ve just noticed and I have to apologise that I missed introducing one of our panellists actually Katarina i'm sorry I apologise sustainability strategies at Gothenburg and co uh Katarina since uh i'm not trying to fix what I did before can I ask you now about your actions which actions would you be wanting to highlight sure no worries Virginia no worries at all and thank you for inviting me first of all and also a big thank you for this initiative with the Glasgow declaration I believe this is so important to our industry to actually gather and get together and collaborate on this important issue that uh affects us all in a way about the actions I would also like to say some short words around measuring because I do think that is really important to move forward and to find a common framework for measuring as a DMO for example we are in the middle of looking at our own mapping our climate footprint uh in accordance to the ghg protocol and when you come to scope 3 for example this gets really wicked in a way so I would really collaborate on finding a common framework for this internationally so measuring is one action that we are on and then collaboration being a DMO the stakeholder involvement and stakeholder engagement is core to us so keeping engaging and involving and supporting the supplier side is really key to us and listening to them as for today the city of Gothenburg has around 90 percent of the hotels uh with a third party environmental certification for example that is one way to move forward our transport system is uh working towards becoming climate neutral in a couple of years so looking at the ecosystem of course and engaging them is key but also on the other side making it easy for the visitors and the locals to make sustainable choices and show them what they can choose and what is good for the local community of course I think Janie from VisitScotland had a brilliant road map uh for uh destination so thank you for that as well Danny well done thank you thank you amazing to see some so much action taking place I’d like now to invite Maria Linde please Maria thank you thank you so much for inviting me to this interesting and important event it feels great to be part of the network of organisations who are signing the declaration uh I think the most important action that we have taken as an organisation is that we have changed our whole way of working we have put sustainability in the centre of what we are doing it's not about attracting as many visitors as possible it's about making tourism as sustainable as possible in all three dimensions and we are realised very much in line with today's theme that if we want to make a change we can't do it alone we have to get the tourism companies and the public sector in west Sweden to work together so what I would like to focus on is the issue of collaboration we have developed a strategy that we call stepping up sustainability where we now have 40 local authorities and 350 tourism companies that are all working together taking steps in the right direction sharing experiences with each other encouraging each other to do great efforts within sustainability and what we also feel is not just about doing things it's actually also about opting out of certain things uh so just to give you a few examples we don't market west Sweden outside of Europe anymore to avoid encouraging long-distance flights not to say that people from outside of Europe aren't welcome to west we know of course they are but we don't market west Sweden outside of Europe we don't market the places that we know are the most popular for tourists to visit to avoid over tourism and that might sound easy but actually it's rather tempting to put those most popular places in the marketing what we also try to do is we try to get the visitors that come to west Sweden to stay as long as possible during their holiday to avoid unnecessary transportation those are just a few examples we do a lot of other things I thought it was very interesting to listen to Janie from VisitScotland because I recognise so many things uh in what she said that we are doing as well and I obviously don't have time to go into any details here but we do have a website steppingupsustainability.com that you're very welcome to visit to see because there are so many good examples from the tourism companies in west Sweden sharing experiences thank you, Marie we do have time, so these questions may come up in the open session so let's hear now from Arika please from Oregon coast Good morning from the Oregon coast thank you so much for having me yeah I agree that it's so great having these pathways to look at and be able to talk about and just kind of actually worked in perfect order after listening to uh to Marie and Kat because I was gonna talk about collaboration as well I think that we often talk about collaboration as almost like this beautiful notion or something political to say like we should all work together and that's true and it is beautiful but for a really small non-profit like the Oregon coast we have to work together and we have to align resources because we don't have the staff capacity or funding to not do that so a lot of our actions over the past several months have been really collaborating with state agencies here in Oregon understanding what some upcoming plans are you know what what's our department of transportation planning to do around you know electric vehicles what is what's our energy grid you know we're so fortunate in Oregon that our energy grid should be clean energy by 2040 so we have these exciting opportunities and we love to be innovative but we don't love to reinvent the wheels so we've spent a lot of time in this collaboration phase understanding what resources and programs already exist and then we're taking all this information and hoping that we can distil it down for our smaller DMO’s and chambers that exist in our region so that they don't have to spend so much time going through all these interviews and trying to wade through all this information so we spent a lot of time in collaboration and our team is really excited about the decarbonised pathway I think often as humans when we think of change we think of it as a negative thing maybe we're about to lose something when we change but actually with these decarbonisation opportunities we're adding things to our destination and so our team's really excited about what you know what does it look like to add ev charging stations in front of businesses what does it look like to add extra stops local stops and our supply chain and have that kind of product available for visitors solar panels and public transit so those are all additions to our destination that we're really excited about so spending a lot of time in collaboration really excited about the decarbonisation aspect thank you Erica yours I’d like to hear from you now if you may tell us yes thank you very much Virginia and thank you for having us i'm quite humbled to be honest to be in the presence of so many committed change agents and I can only hope that the Netherlands will uh will do you all proud in in due time when it comes to some examples let me give you a few when it comes to the pathway of the measurement it's I guess the returning subject today I see already Megan applewood also stating that it's key to get to common framework and I can only support that because also the Netherlands like many of us here today are working on let's say a new dashboard new kips new variables to monitor to steer and to be the basis and foundation for better policies and better action meaning that we move forward from just the economic the traditional economic variables to the ecological ones but also the social ones and it goes without saying that it's quite a challenge the wheel is being reinvented I guess at many places around the globe so if anything comes out of this today it would be fantastic that a few of us could come together and really set emotion the need for that common framework it would be of tremendous help in steering this movement into the desired direction when it comes to an example in collaboration another key aspect I noticed that when in the Netherlands it tends to be not the sexiest subject to talk about but it's key to progress and that's a task force that is put in place as a result of COVID so apart from the social economic and health crisis that COVID put upon us some of the things that came out of it are actually pretty interesting in the Netherlands it means there's now for the first time ever a task force where national government provincial government and local governments sit together with the industry with the knowledge institutions and ourselves to steer the future and sustainable development of destination Netherlands which is fantastic is it effective as it could be as it should be no it isn't yet but it's a table it's a setup where all the relevant partners are in place and working together towards a sustainable future which I guess is a great breeding ground for everything we would like to do as part of this declaration and a few practical examples be it in the decarbonisation or regeneration pathways is for example uh providing a guide to sustainable tourism in the national parks in the Netherlands really helping them to develop a sustainable tourism strategies putting the communities in the centre of these strategies but also and that won't come as a surprise being the biking country in the world although the Danes would challenge this of course is that being a bike country we really would like to see our key position being strengthened by evolving the infrastructure to accommodate the e-bike more sufficiently which is fantastic but because the e-bike isn't just a wonderful way to explore the Netherlands in a decarbonised way but it also increases people's action radius so they can actually explore more before their bomb becomes uh starts to hurt from the saddles for those who are not used to ride a bike so plenty to do these are just a few examples that we would like to progress on thank you so much just you have highlighted how important story is uh to collaborate across the different uh stakeholders and levels of government I think this is a persisting challenge and that's why i'm really happy that we have it now as a pathway to remind us all uh that we need to collaborate I’d like to ask a question to the minister actually uh with regards to how things are happening in the governing the government of Barbados in in this regard I mean do you get the necessary support from the uh other ministries that are also looking at climate change and how is interministerial uh coordination uh producing uh i'm sure it's not an easy task I I’d also if you can maybe share with us a bit how do you interact with the industry so how are you really putting the glue uh in between all the stakeholders so that the climate action we're committed to deliver can actually take place well thanks for asking that Virginia I think it's a really important question what we're doing in Barbados and our prime minister as you know she's been in Glasgow and she's been speaking on a number of these issues and we have a combination of our environmental protection teams our climate teams but also our economic and finance teams because let's be honest about this here we are a tourism-dependent economy and if we think about what has happened in the last 18 to 22 months or so we have had approximately 87 of our annual income taken from the country as a result of the decline in international travel and the impact on the tourism economy we have had a decline 40 percent of our annual GDP is derived from tourism and about 40 percent if not higher of our labour force works in a tourism economy and so when you have a sector that drives your entire economy and your society together the impact is significant when you have to make changes or when the last two years almost have happened and so we don't have the luxury as a small island developing states of state of diversifying into high-end manufacturing as is the case in many other countries we do not have food security because we don't have large tracts of land for the production of agriculture and so on and so tourism is very much our mainstay and being able to do so sustainably is a matter of life or death for us and so all across our government agencies in every single ministry the question of sustainability is being treated to so for example in our public transportation system we have recently transitioned within the last two years to a largely electronic vehicle fleet previously we had these diesel guzzling public service vehicles that you would hear coming a mile off and they will be traversing the streets and locals and visitors alike took that as public transportation now we have almost flipped the script and the majority of our public transportation is electric we were one of the very first countries in the world and we've been overtaken by many others subsequently in developing solar panels for electric water for water heating purposes so nearly every house at the highest level of income to the lowest level of income most likely you're going to see a solar water heating unit on that roof and we've evolved over time so there's solar farms and we're seeing a lot more of the renewable energy unfolding over time but the element and I spoke earlier about the importance of finance for us as one of the pathways we at the start of the pandemic in order to focus on the development of the tourism sector as we went through the pandemic we developed a program which was around 300 million dollars of an investment and a significant percentage of that across public and private sector across all agencies including finance economic affairs tourism and so on was the introduction of such what we call environmentally sustainable and transformative investments and that included things like waste management water management wastewater treatment plants uh being put into our hotels solarisation and digitalisation as well so all of those are key elements that go into our net zero uh targets and our cross-agency collaboration but for us we don't have the luxury of treating to it just as a collaborative event we don't have the alternatives in terms of sectoral development we don't derive large amounts of revenue from other sources and so tourism being sustainable for us is absolutely a critical part of our growth and development strategy and it is across all of our agencies thank you very much minister for sharing all those insights I really hope they can inspire many others to follow suit I’d like to ask a question to Murray now actually let's say if you were to uh discuss with fellow national parks and you were to recommend to them how to start national parks that are still not embarked on climate action what could be the low-hanging fruit if we can find any low-hanging fruit in terms of climate action for national parks uh well I think most of my colleagues in national parks are they are already working on this I think in the Cairngorms we are fortunate in that the whole model of a national park we've got is very much based on collaboration we're unusual in that I work for the national park authority which is the overarching government body responsible but we don't actually own or directly manage any of the land in this enormous landscape 75 percent of the land is owned privately and the rest is owned by charities or other government bodies and that means that we can place our emphasis on trying to encourage everyone to work together and spotting the projects that are not happening etc and I think I think thinking of tourism issues the opportunity we've got in national parks is to address the climate challenge alongside the biodiversity challenge which is undoubtedly facing us and also to capitalise on the goodwill and good sentiment that people have when they visit these special landscapes you know these are these are inspirational times in people's lives so we really need to rise to the challenge and use that sentiment in order to take the population with us and i'm sure my colleagues in other national parks are aware of that too thanks Murray indeed I mean biodiversity loss is like another uh of the greatest challenges that humanity is uh facing these days so a really inspirational job and I would say even front runners with capability of influencing the whole of a destination and also changing behaviour by providing those experiences in nature so thanks uh for sharing next question is a bit more technical for Katarina since you were mentioning scope three I’d be curious to learn uh how are those discussions happening at the destination level like when you think about a scope three how are the debates uh you know producing what how would you let's say roughly define your scope 3 if that's possible as of today well actually we are in the middle of this as I wrote in the chat the it’s a bumpy road uh finding the sort of right scope and then also getting the data so looking both upstream and downstream and we're we are starting with the DMO as an organisation so we don't have full uh sort of control of every supplier on the destination and what the individual tourists make what kind of choices they make so we are still really really struggling uh so what I believe or would what I would like is both to do the DMO the organisational mapping and then also look at the the map of the destination uh in some rough way uh I I don't have the answers and we're it's really trial and error and sort of testing things uh so unfortunately I don't have a good answer to your question not more than it's a bumpy road and we're we're sort of finding a way forward thank you Katarina sorry to maybe I’ve been a bit totally actually I I don't think anybody has the answer yet at destination level it's really something that we all have to prioritise and as you say trial and error so we can really come up with a methodology that that works and avoid you know duplications as much as possible so I really think we we should all take this as a priority sorry and also to find sort of a decent level so where you can get the data that is uh manageable and easy to get so you don't put all your money and your efforts in trying to find the nitty-gritty things but actually measuring the important uh streams so it's really it's really hard to find this level that is workable in many ways absolutely thank you uh maria I like very much the the how you echoed the promotion and uh how you are promoting and not promoting your destination because it's something that I mean we've been reflecting about as promotion is the we could say the traditional competence of all ministries uh of tourism do would you say this is really a lever for the sector to to accelerate climate action that we could influence marketing and promotion strategies yes I think it is and also in the way that we can influence during what time of the year the terrorists come to us that we don't just bring more tourists during the high seasons uh so I think marketing is very very much a key issue here how we handle th
2021-11-25 03:45
