CarbonTour Project: Strategic Planning Towards Carbon Neutrality In Tourism

Greek tourism professionals gained valuable insights yesterday, 10 December, on calculating their carbon footprint and reducing CO2 emissions, during the presentation of the CarbonTour project and software tool at the international conference on the promotion of sustainability and energy efficiency in the tourism sector. The conference was held at the Divani Caravel Hotel in Athens.

The CarbonTour project has been running for the past two years in the areas of the North Aegean, Greece, and Cyprus and concerns tourism accommodation of all types and categories.

The project aims to develop a strategic approach for CO2 offsetting and carbon neutrality for the tourism accommodation industry that will provide guidelines for the reduction of tourism contribution to climate change.

At the same time, if properly implemented, the project is expected to deliver cost savings through reduced energy and water consumption, reduced gate fees for landfilling as well as through carbon credits.

According to data, on a global level, annual transport-related tourism emissions have been estimated at 980 Mt CO2, accommodation-related tourism emissions at 274 Mt CO2 and emissions from other tourism activities at 48 Mt CO2. On a local level, accommodation-related CO2 emissions in the North Aegean Sea are estimated at 116 kt per year and in Cyprus at 500 kt.

CarbonTour is a European project co-funded by LIFE+, the European Union financial instrument for the environment and was launched 1 September 2010.

The budget of the CarbonTour project is 1,324,139 euros (50 percent funded by the EU).

The program ends on 31 December 2012.

Further information: http://uest.ntua.gr/carbontour/