Amadeus recently announced a partnership with the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) to provide the GDS’s customers information about their air travel carbon emissions.

Given the negative environmental impact of travel coupled with widespread online distribution of travel content (schedules, pricing, images, product details, etc.), I wondered how all the GDS’ were addressing the growing demand for more specific CO2 emissions data, specifically in air travel.

First, some terminology.

In travel, a journey’s carbon footprint is calculated by how much carbon dioxide (CO2) is emitted during a given trip.

Aircraft emit lots of CO2 per passenger, followed by cruise ships, trains, cars and hotels.

Many organizations worldwide offer a way to purchase a corresponding amount of carbon offsets based on the CO2 emission of a given activity or trip.

In the GDS, I found no agent- or traveler-direct distribution of CO2 emissions information in the leisure and unmanaged corporate booking segments.

None.

Representatives from all three major GDSs say the travel segment driving emissions-reporting is managed corporate travel, because the large corporations that have lots of business travelers generally have corporate social responsibility initiatives that require emissions reporting.

For those corporate customers, Travelport and Sabre offer emissions reporting post-trip, or for trips booked for the future.

Travelport’s product is Carbon Tracker and Sabre includes emissions information in its Traveler Security & Data Suite product.

However, Sabre is the only GDS that offers any kind of traveler-facing emissions information (for corporate travelers only) in the booking path via its GetThere Green product.

Surprisingly, Amadeus is the last GDS to the table; given Europe’s generally more stringent emissions regulations, I would have thought a European company would be in the forefront of C02-related initiatives.

According to Lucas Bobes from Amadeus’ Group Environmental Offices, Amadeus will use the ICAO carbon emission calculator to create an average emission of CO2 per city pair, and like Sabre and Travelport, the data will initially only be available as post-booking reports to corporate customers.

Ultimately, Amadeus want the data to be available in all selling platforms and possibly to their direct connect partners via their XML API, although they’ve set no date on any product delivery.

So why not offer travelers information about a trip’s given CO2 emissions in the booking path?

A Travelport representative points to the market and says: “We are currently reviewing the market needs for carbon related reporting across our point-of-sale applications and at this time, we are focused on post trip reporting.”

Sabre generally agrees.  “Price and schedule are the primary drivers when passengers book flights,” says Leilani Latimer, director of Sustainability Initiatives at Sabre.

“We’ve seen no indicators that CO2 emission information would have any material impact on travel decision-making, and it’s hard to make a carbon tonne meaningful to a consumer.”

Common examples of making that carbon tonne meaningful include number of cars on the road or number of barrels of oil (although how many of you have ever seen a barrel of oil?).

A travel-specific example is emissions data for flights relative to one another.

That direct flight from Boston to Vienna might emit half the carbon tonnage as the connecting flight through Frankfurt, but it might cost 25 percent more.

Which would you book?

Given the almost total lack of traveler-facing emissions information, the GDS suppositions seem valid; if travelers really wanted it, we’d see it touted as a competitive advantage, like no-fee hotel bookings or double-mile programs.

One major airline that does put emissions information in the booking path for all customers is British Airways.

Using a calculation approved by the UK government’s Carbon Offsetting Quality Assurance Scheme, users to BA.com can select a flight and see the carbon emissions generated by the flight (in carbon tonnes) and also purchase an offset, adding the cost of the offset to the total flight cost.

“We take our environmental responsibilities very seriously,” says Cathy West of British Airways.

“So we have made it easy for our customers to offset the impact of their journey.  Forcing them outside the booking path means adding another process,” decreasing the chance the customer will actually see the emissions and offset information and be able to act on it.

BA says it has received positive customer feedback and believes the program serves a market need.

Pete Davies, president of TerraPass Retail, agrees.

“At the margin, customers are quite interested in their CO2 footprint, and they pay attention to companies that take leadership positions in this area.”

What’s meaningful, he says, is the impact a carbon offset can have, not the carbon tonnage of a six-hour flight in a 787.

“People know traveling is bad for the environment, but understanding the CO2 impact in relative terms rather than absolute will drive demand for this information,” like the impact of carbon offset funds directed toward a wind farm or cleaner dairy operations.

A final consideration in this discussion is the method of emissions calculation.

All three GDSs use different calculation models for their CO2 emissions.

Sabre in particular seems to have put a great deal of effort into building a complex model based on aircraft type at time of booking (for fuel burn and seating configuration), distance flown between points, and various internationally accepted protocols.

The calculation seems of limited value, given that it is currently only being applied to one customer segment – managed corporate travel.

Adding emissions data to GDS booking platforms, while not difficult, obviously won’t generate much revenue in the short term, and given the current economic climate, any feature that doesn’t generate an immediate ROI will get bumped down the list.

Responsibletravel.com has today given its online carbon offsetting programme the chop – a move almost guaranteed to inspire differing opinions about how to highlight climate change with air travel-hungry travellers.

One of the first organisations to do so, the site proudly launched its offsetting programme in 2002 and spearheaded a round of soul-searching within larger travel firms as to how they should deal with the thorny issue of selling or promoting travel at the same time as appearing to be aware of its impact on the global environment.

Fast forward seven years and ResponsibleTravel has abandoned the programme, citing a Friends of the Earth report into the wider offsetting issue.

“Carbon offsets distract tourists from the need to reduce their emissions. They create a ‘medieval pardon’ for us to carry on behaving in the same way (or worse).”

The company has instead replaced the offsetting programme with a Carbon Caution page on its site which offers “tips and advice” for travellers.

Managing director Justin Francis says:

“We believe that the travel industry’s priority must be to reduce carbon emissions, rather than to offset. Too often offsets are being used by the tourism industry in developed countries to justify growth plans on the basis that money will be donated to projects in developing countries.”

Whether the move will inspire others – such as lastminute.com- to follow is another thing, but the reality of using strong language such as “dangerously distracting” by ResponsibleTravel is likely to trigger a new round of soul searching.

PS: Lastminute.com says “we launched it [Offsetting] in November 2006, and more than more than 15% of our customers have chosen to offset the CO2 emissions of their flying, which equates to nearly 50,000 tonnes (48,620).

NB and a side issue and a perhaps a lesson to learn for PRs trying to manage the message when something like this is announced:

ResponsibleTravel issued a press release regarding its decision, embargoed until midnight UK time 16 October 2009.

But no sooner had it hit in-boxes, Twitter was on it. Some had already picked up on it a few days ago.

ResponsibleTravel had also already uploaded the new Carbon Caution page.

The concept of embargoes for “traditional media” is on the wane. The social media universe doesn’t respect them – and why should it?

Until now, Tnooz has always abided by them – but we will now evaluate the value of whether to stick to them on a case-by-case basis. Feel free to disagree…

For more debate on this particular issue, read this treatise by TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington.

What is my agenda for the site, what do I say, what is my voice, my goal, my cause, what will I write about?

 Those of you who know me well are already aware of what drives my personal ambition as well as my writing:  travel, technology and the environment.

And while future posts, articles and theoretical ramblings will present a stronger focus on tourism technology, I felt it appropriate to address a larger subject.  Global, if you will.

At present, while you sit at your desk or check in on your various RSS feeds via the ubiquitous Blackberry, the world is changing.  At grassroots gatherings and worldwide summits, such as the recent Climate Week in New York City, thousands of our peers are addressing the issue of our time…climate change.

I submit to you that climate change is not simply an issue for Greenpeace and the United Nations; it is now an issue for you, for us and for our industry.  The time has arrived to lend our voice to the congregation and become a part of the solution.  The travel industry…utilizing technology…can help lead the way.

Sounds good you say, but how?  And furthermore, why?  Why us?  Why me?

All of us love (or should love) to travel.  We travel to see the world, to experience different cultures and to embrace the variety of natural wonders that exist on our wide-ranging planet.  Beyond that wonderful and sugar-coated fact, we sell destinations and, for the most part, we sell the natural surroundings that exist in these destinations.

Our budgets, profits, local taxes, salaries, families, friends and bankers depend on the revenues that are generated due to the splendors of these amazing sites.  On top of that, our jobs depend on the environment that we sell so eagerly to willing travelers.  That fact alone should be enough cause for you to read on, regardless of personal opinion.

But, as quickly as these wonders of the world are being discovered by the masses, they are at risk of being destroyed due to a changing climate.

The crumbling and deteriorating ruins throughout Greece and Egypt are under attack by the acid rain produced, in part, by exhaust of the rental cars and buses that bring thousands of tourists to these marvels in the first place.

Or, take the first 90 degree day in the Valley of the Sun… Phoenix…a location from which I speak with experience.  According to yearly readings from NOAA, the first 90 degree day in Phoenix over the past 25 years is, on average, April 1, however when isolating the last 10 years, that date jumps to March 29.  On paper, only a two day difference, but in terms of evolutionary time, those two days (over such a short period) represent a large shift in climate patterns.

As you can imagine, it becomes difficult to sell the idea of a lovely alfresco lunch when the temperature reaches 120 degrees.  Trust me; all the misting systems in the world will not cool you down.

Perhaps the most startling and troubling example of this disastrous trend is the tiny nation of Maldives.  The archipelago lies just off the coast of India and is literally being washed off of the map due to our lack of action on such issues as capping carbon emissions.

And the list goes on…drought in Australia, an overpopulation of pine beetles in Colorado and much of the Rocky Mountain West as well as glaciers disappearing from mainland Europe.

The destination that we sell is being destroyed, or at best, becoming nearly unrecognizable.

But we have a green program, you say.

Nothing more than talk, I say.

Sure, you have a couple of recycling cans in the office, perhaps you even buy locally grown produce for your restaurant and let us not forget about that expensive ‘We are Green’ brochure on your website.

Kudos, perhaps the people of the Maldives can build rafts out of those shiny new brochures and sail off to a new island home.

We need to do more.

We need to be at the head of the table, providing real and tangible ideas and solutions for our community to survive.

Solutions like the E-Move Charging Station in Denmark.   The newly unveiled carbon offset kiosk at SFO. Bicycle exchange programs such as the successful experiment in Paris.  Recycling programs like RAFT in Denver, which provides school supplies to teachers from leftover convention materials.

We need to use technology to educate our consumers about the natural beauty that surrounds them and what we, as the travel industry, are doing to protect it on the local level.

We need to stop printing guides, materials and mailers that consumers do not want and start thinking about how our decisions can be improved with technology and how that technology can improve the natural world.

Simple answers do not exist in this post or topic.  This is a serious issue that calls for serious and thoughtful solutions, which unfortunately cannot be provided in a nice, neat bulleted list.

However, I can provide one solution for this paradox that I have so willingly unleashed on these virgin pages.  We, the travel industry, need to start talking.

We need to start talking to each other, to our consumers, to our peers, to our politicians and to the world.  All too often we spend endless hours discussing the best way to entice visitors to our destinations without even mentioning or blatantly ignoring such issues as air quality, carbon offsets and the potential for environmental damage.  We have trained ourselves to focus on short-term gains and let someone else worry about long-term effects.

Technology is standing by and ready to make an impact on more than the way we communicate with tourists.  Technology is ready to help us change the future.  We simply need to start the conversation.

If you have made it this far into the post, then congratulations, I can assure you that future rants will provide more actionable solutions than the previous novel.  And we will certainly talk at length about Twitter, AR, GIS, GDS and every other techie acronym that we can think of, but this subject is beyond important.

I leave you with one final thought.

It is our responsibility to protect and preserve the destination that we sell to millions of travelers each and every day.  It is time we accepted this monumental task and stopped providing excuses.

Otherwise, our children might have no other choice except to visit the Maldives on Wikipedia.