These top tips are from the book ‘Sustainable Travel’ by Holly Tuppen. It would be great if you could take these ideas into account when on a sailing sailing holiday with Classic Sailing.
Communities
We need to respect local customs.
Join in any activity that helps the community where practical
Provide encouragement and support for local initiatives.
Tall Ship Community
Tall ships have their own community of traditional and professional sailors, riggers, shipwrights, sailmakers and trainers, by sailing you help support this community even if it is scattered across the globe.
Culture
Traveling in its best form gives us the chance to learn about different cultures and their way of life.
Study the society you are visiting to get a feel for its past, present and future.
Visit cultural places and support them with entry fees or gift and souvenir purchases.
Look at the vernacular architecture, what does it tell you about, purpose, materials and skills.
Conservation
Our experiences ashore should be eco-friendly and fit for the location.
Make sure footprints are all you leave on beaches.
Engage in any volunteer conservation work or research.
At sea some voyages carry out marine conservation studies.
Commerce
Our holiday spending money is better spent on local guides, crafts, clothing, foods and entertainment rather than Mac Donald’s this and KFC that.
See if you can Fly Better
The Elephant in the room!
Emissions are worse on take off and landing
Seek alternatives to short flights
Fly direct rather than shorter hops.
Jet engines emit water vapour that can cause contrails, these contrails can multiply the net warming of your flight by 2.7 times.
Day time flights are 50% less likely to cause contrails.
Stick to economy as your seating takes up less space than luxury or business class.
Choose airlines with a real commitment to reducing carbon emissions
Select flights with newer planes if possible as these are slightly better.
Analysis on airlines and airplanes is available at Atmosfair and can help your decision making.
Carbon Offsetting – Caution
This is a quick fix that may not be all it seems.
In the first instance follow the points above and only look to carbon offsetting as a last resort.
There are a variety of schemes with differing worthiness and standards of accreditation.
Thank you for reading how to be an eco-friendly sailing hero.
