Carbon Offset/Tourism Declares

When you book to stay with us we will make a donation of €15 to combat climate change by planting trees. So far we have contributed over €5,000 to plant more than 2,000 trees. Your booking will also include a discretionary €15 climate supplement. Our joint €30 contribution will make your holiday much more environmentally friendly. If you do not wish to pay this small amount to partially offset your carbon please let us know.

Carbon offsetting works by calculating how much carbon was used for your flight or car use. This is expressed in kilograms or pounds of carbon per person and can be offset or eliminated by planting trees which then absorb carbon as you can see in the diagram above.

myclimate.org allows you to quickly calculate the carbon use on your holiday. For example we can plant trees on your behalf for €10 which offsets 500 Kg of CO2 (the broad equivalent of one return flight in Europe)

Thanks for your support

‘In these times when many of us may feel a bit queasy about the foreign travel aspect of holidays, they’ve worked really hard to find ways to ensure the negative effects of this are offset as much as possible.’ Jo, Tripadvisor review 2019.

On 14th January 2020, a group of tourism organisations and individuals signed Tourism Declares — uniting the travel industry in declaring a climate emergency and acting accordingly.

At Casal dei Fichi we believe that tourism can have a hugely positive impact. With care and consideration it helps develop and support local communities, allows cultures to be maintained and educates and informs those who travel.

However, paradoxically, it is also contributing to the climate crisis. In particular, the CO2 emissions from flights and over-tourism are having a very negative effect on our world.

We are signing this declaration and agree to these five Tourism Declares commitments:

Develop a ‘Climate Emergency Plan’
Share our commitment and progress publicly
Cut our carbon emissions in line with IPCC advice(stating the need to cut global carbon emissions to 55% below 2017 levels by 2030 to keep the planet within 1.5 degrees of warming).
Work with others in the travel industry
Advocate for change throughout the travel industry

These are grand statements but essentially what it means is we need to do more to lessen our impact on the planet and we will be publicising our further steps as we go along.

This is our Climate Action Plan. We commit to updating on our progress annually.

Measure

We have measured our emissions and now have a baseline number from which to reduce year on year.

Reduce

On average each business needs to reduce emissions by 50% by 2030 if we have a chance of keeping the global temperature rise to no more than 1.5% by 2050.

We plan on reducing our emissions by 15% annually.

Inform/Educate

We are making progress with our carbon footprint but perhaps the biggest impact that we can have is on influencing others. The more people and businesses that take action the greater the aggregate effect. We want to magnify our impact by helping others understand the issues so that they can take action. This takes two forms.

Our guests – environmental sustainability is at the heart of our business and we always promote what we do and why. By leading by example and answering our guests questions, we encourage all our guests to take back home with them the practices that they can weave into their lives. Of course we also learn from our guests too.

Industry – much of the short term rental industry has not woken up to the climate crisis and taken steps to be more environmentally sustainable. Our continued outreach and education of our peers is vital in changing hearts and minds. This daily action is tracked on our press page and on Bob’s LinkedIn profile.

Specific additional steps in 2021

Solar panels – we are adding to our roof panels with some photovoltaic panels so we are more self sufficient with electricity.

Heat Pump – we are installing a heat pump to provide an alternative system to heating the apartments and so be less reliant on gas.

Heating system – we are updating the system to more efficiently use any gas that will back up the heat pump.

Waste management – we are installing larger/more advanced septic tanks to ensure all waste is processed to provide nutrients for the land.

Tree planting – we are expanded both our restaurant focussed tree planting scheme and our carbon offset so as to double our impact. We know tree planting is not an alternative to emissions reductions but it is an effective tool as part of our wider scope of work.