A carbon footprint is defined by the emissions of greenhouse gases associated with any specific activity or transaction. The carbon footprint of travelling is primarily made of CO2 emissions from flights, accommodation, and ground transportation. Because of the wide range of activities involved and the fuel required, commercial aviation has a carbon footprint accounting for at least 2% of global human-induced CO2 emissions. Due to the constraints of current aircraft technology, all commercial flying today has an unavoidable carbon footprint.

Carbon offsetting is a climate action that enables individuals and organizations to address the CO2 emissions they cannot avoid by supporting projects - like clean-energy producing wind farms or forestry projects - that verifiably reduce, capture, or avoid a proportional amount of CO2 emissions. Said another way, carbon offsetting enables travellers to balance the carbon emissions released as a result of their travelling.

Flight calculations are calculated as a result of fuel burn, passenger load, cargo load, and an adjustment to account for adverse climate impact beyond carbon dioxide (such as nitrous gas and formation of contrails). The calculations are performed at various precision levels:

• By-distance uses emission factors from the UK Department for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy (BEIS). By-route is based on the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) route average emissions.

• Flight number is the most precise, applying specific fuel burn and passenger and cargo load factors for your flight (in line with the International Air Transport Association (IATA) methodology.

Accommodation calculations are based on the UK Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy, Greenhouse gas reporting conversion factors.

Train emissions are using Google Maps as the engine to compute route distances, and the emission factors are from the European Environment Agency: average rail emissions in the EU per passenger-km (2014, published 2017).

Bus emissions are using Google Maps as the engine to compute route distances, and emission factors are from the UK Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy, Greenhouse gas reporting: conversion factors.

Car calculations are based on the Worldwide Harmonised Light Vehicle Test Procedure (WLTP) when available, with a fallback on correlating WLT New European Driving Cycle (NEDC). For electric cars, the average grid emission density per country is used. Source database: European Environment Agency (EEA).

When travelers offset their carbon footprint, funds are applied to help support projects that reduce, capture, or avoid carbon emissions in an amount equivalent to that of their calculated carbon footprint. All of the funds are applied directly to the projects, with a small remaining portion used for standard administration and support services from CHOOOSE. Carbon offsetting is performed through the purchase and retirement of third-party verified carbon credits, which are units of emission reduction used in voluntary offsetting programs. Each carbon credit corresponds to 1000 kg of CO2. The carbon credits made available to TourRadar is called Verified Emission Reduction (VER) units, certified by the Verified Carbon Standard, and Certified Emissions Reduction (CER) units, certified by the Gold Standard and United Nations CDM. Due to transaction minimums, travelers will typically offset more than their calculated footprint — but never less. The offset price that the traveler pays is the total cost to deliver the verified offset.

All projects that CHOOOSE™ make available to TourRadar and its travellers are subject to ongoing and regular monitoring, reporting, and auditing to ensure that they remain in compliance with these standards and operational best practices.

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Pichacay Landfill Gas Renewable Energy Project: Projects certified by the Verified Carbon Standard and by the Gold Standard must adhere to the principle of “additionality”. This means that the projects are being realized as a result of the funding. In other words, travelers are not supporting a project that would have been carried out anyway. The carbon credits are funding additional carbon mitigation. Often, projects are not financially attractive to investors without the sale of these carbon credits and would therefore not materialize.

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TIST Program in Uganda: The International Small Group and Tree Planting Program (TIST) was the world’s first dual validated and verified carbon offsetting program by the Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) and the Climate, Community and Biodiversity (CCB) standards. It is recognized as a leading carbon offsetting program and has developed an award-winning monitoring system, using third-party verified standards to ensure carbon emission reductions are real. The TIST farmers contract to maintain the tree groves for 30 years in return for annual carbon pre-payments per live tree, and a 70% share of the net profits from carbon credit sales. Without such a financial incentive, not only the programme could not pay for all the costs required to grow and expand by reaching out to additional farmers, but farmers themselves would not have the incentive or the means to keep maintaining the trees for so long. In addition, farmers are achieving over $7 per tree of non-carbon benefits. After 5 years of tree growth, tree mass and the volume of carbon stored in the trees can be calculated, the carbon captured is verified to international standards, and carbon credits can be offered for sale.