My mentor and friend Suki Laniado Smith taught me the phrase “Awareness is the Greatest Agent for Change“. One area where I have focussed my awareness more and more in recent years is on my personal carbon footprint,
As recently as 2015 I flew 369,000 miles (and a total of well over 150 flights) in that single year. Yes, it was almost all for business, and yes, my role did involve a lot of global travel, but that is still an amazing amount. How focussed was I at that time on my carbon footprint and on reducing it? Not much at all, to be honest.
After moving to the UK in 2017, I continued to travel more than most, largely to go back and forward to Cayman around half a dozen times a year, so that alone is over 50,000 flown miles annually, but my work role had changed and this was still a large reduction in air travel for me, to under 100,000 total miles per year.
I have also become more and more aware and conscious of my carbon footprint and consciously look to take the train over flying (domestically in the UK, at least) and use public transport over my car. I even bought a smaller house. Oh, and the vast majority of my client contact is and has been for many years via video calls, so that is way better for the environment than any form of travel.
Of course, since the pandemic started, that cut things a lot more, including that I have flown to Cayman only once and have made a total of less than ten short-haul flights in over 2.5 years, so my carbon footprint has decreased even more radically.
As we move into 2023, though, I see myself once again flying more, including regularly to Cayman.
Now, some of the more radical activists on climate change wish us to ban air travel entirely. When asked “what about those of us with family and close ties thousands of miles away?” there is little sympathy for our desire to stay connected to our people and our roots, and I will continue to make sure I see family and close connections each year, often several times. That will mean air travel as there is no viable alternative.
I do not know where I will ultimately sit on the spectrum of “I will never fly at all” at one end and “I fly hundreds of thousands of miles a year” at the other, but I can say I am far more conscious than I have ever been on the carbon footprint I leave as I make my choices across all areas of my life.
One tool I love to use to maintain that focus is called Pawprint. Initially offered to individuals, they are now focused on scaling their impact by working with corporations to offer this to their people to assess their individual and collective carbon footprints. I actively used Pawprint during their beta phase, it really helped bring more and more awareness to the impact we each have and the choices we can make to reduce that impact.
This focus from Pawprint also drew me to research and analyse in different areas, including a) the relative carbon footprint of short-haul flying vs tracking the rain (the train makes a big difference) and b) the same of private cars (conclusions included a) don’t by a hybrid, they are the worst of all worlds due to carbon cost of the battery and only marginal improvement in fuel efficiency, and b) for the next few years the best option for those doing low annual mileages is a small engined petrol car, not an electric one).
I hope sharing my musings may bring your awareness to your own carbon footprint as we look towards our plans for 2023 for business and personal travel.