Having created a dashboard to help members measure and reduce their carbon footprint, we’re now exploring how we measure the carbon value of the landscapes and ecosystems they safeguard. By establishing a more concrete ‘value’ for biodiversity, we hope to encourage others to move away from an offsetting model that depends on mono-crops and unsustainable tree planting, to one that invests in the protection of landscapes and marinescapes, instead.
The Long Run will also investigate existing and innovative, cost-effective system to help demonstrate carbon and biodiversity value amongst its members.
At last year’s annual meeting, we discussed the need for more collective targets both as an incentive and mark of commitment. As such, in early 2020, we joined Tourism Declares and committed to be a carbon-neutral organisation by 2020 and ensure that The Long Run collective is carbon positive by 2025.
As part of this work, The Long Run team, in collaboration with Efisur, has created a performance calculator and dashboard for members to strengthen resource efficiency and reduce carbon emissions across operations. At this year’s annual meeting, we were delighted to present preliminary results and discuss our next round of collective targets.
It is clear that the appetite for collective targets is growing, not only as an incentive, but influencing regions, authorities, competitors, and neighbours. Our ambition is growing, too: As Andrew Dixon, Managing Director of Nikoi Island, comments, ‘I think we need to move away from this concept of reducing by 100% — we can move beyond that into a positive reduction of waste.’
We will now work on continually updating and improving collective targets, and work with affiliates to provide expert support to members.
Collective Targets
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