Over the past 15+ years of actively hosting events and offering exclusive activities across the Balearic Islands, we have watched the tourist boom on the islands. As a company we have profited from the demand, but we have also become increasingly concerned about the growing pressure that 13 million visitors a year have on the islands’ natural resources. The over-crowded beaches, the plastic polluted sea, traffic-jammed roads and water restrictions are all warning signs that the islands have come under strain. The impact of climate change on the underwater world, which only parts of those tourists have an insight to, are not even taken into account by those facts. And this is on a small scale, limited to our destination. Similar things occur in any other tourist destination. These considerations do not even include other sectors, so imagine the overall impact on our planet.
This year things are very different: There were moments when the world stopped moving. Tourism industry is only slowly recovering, and many businesses are struggling to survive. The positive side effects: our planet has had a moment to breath & regenerate. And results were visible in a short period of time. This finally increased awareness within the communities, that every small contribution does have an impact. Time is now to collaboratively make a change!
Ever since, we as a company have been acting in a responsible way, caring about our destination, focusing on preservation and regeneration of the environment. The intention has always been to avoid leaving behind a negative impact and aiming to convert our existence into a benefit for our destination. We now are convinced what we did so far is no longer enough! That’s why we developed & implemented a holistic sustainability concept to immediately contribute to the UN Sustainable Development Goals. The idea is to not only improve our own performance but also inspire all our partners to support a sustainable development on the Balearic Islands and collectively make a change.
We proudly announce that together with international tourism businesses, organisations and individuals we are now a declaring a climate emergency as a signatory of the movement Tourism Declares. We’re committed to taking purposeful action to reduce our carbon emissions as per the advice from The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to cut global carbon emissions to 55% below 2017 levels by 2030.
Like all signatories, we have committed to the following five actions:
1. Develop a ‘Climate Emergency Plan’ within the next 12 months, which sets out our intentions to reduce carbon emissions over the next decade.
2. Share an initial public declaration of our ‘Climate Emergency Plan’, and update on progress each year.
3. Accept current IPCC advice stating the need to cut global carbon emissions to 55% below 2017 levels by 2030 in order to keep the planet within 1.5 degrees of warming. We’ll ensure our ‘Climate Emergency Plan’ represents actions designed to achieve this as a minimum, through delivering transparent, measurable and increasing reductions in the total carbon emissions per customer arising from our operations and the travel services sold by us.
4. Encourage our suppliers and partners to make the same declaration; sharing best practice amongst peers; and actively participate in the Tourism Declares community
5. Advocate for change. We recognise the need for system change across the industry, and call for urgent regulatory action to accelerate the transition towards zero carbon air travel.
As this movement is fully in line with our overall sustainability concept, the ongoing efforts defined within our sustainability action plan are supporting our fight against climate emergency. We will publicly report the outcome of the actions taken and status on each goal we defined for this year, based on which we will set our goals for the coming year. Time is now to start making a change all together!
Read more »21/08/2020, Janina