Climate Action - Roadmap

WHAT’S INSIDE

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It's time for Climate Action planning

Did you know that Ireland has committed to cutting greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030 and achieving net-zero emissions by 2050?

At Fáilte Ireland, we are calling out Driving Climate Action as a Strategic Priority, helping tourism and hospitality businesses contribute to these targets. Not only will your business become more sustainable, but you’ll learn how to introduce efficient cost saving measures.

To help you get started, we are providing a practical Climate Action Roadmap with a series of guides for your Climate Action journey.

This roadmap is a key tool to drive and navigate you along the Climate Action path of carbon reduction and introduces you to the key areas defining the climate impact of your business.

Once you have established how your business can prioritise Climate Action, check out the other guides for tips and tools to progress your journey in key areas including: This

Prioritise Climate Action planning in your business

Climate Action is a global initiative and a major player in tourism business development. Committing to Climate Action makes your business more sustainable and helps to cut costs in several key areas. Here are just some of the benefits…

TOP TIP Check out climatejargonbuster.ie a website that explains common Climate Action terms clearly and concisely.

HORSE RIDING AT RED STRAND, CO. CORK

BENEFITS OF CLIMATE ACTION PLANNING

01

BUILD BUSINESS RESILIENCE FOR THE FUTURE

We are in transition to a low carbon society, and this will shape our economy in the next decade. Start planning for the renewable energy and low carbon supply chain your business will use in the future.

02

REDUCE BUSINESS COSTS

Reducing carbon emissions means reducing consumption, which leads directly to a reduction in bottom-line costs for your business. Climate Action measures can help your business reduce and avoid carbon taxes.

03

BOOST YOUR BUSINESS BRAND AND REPUTATION

It’s important to demonstrate that your business is playing its part in tackling climate change. This boosts your brand and reputation, enhances your marketing and sales activity, and appeals to prospective employees.

04 ENHANCE MARKETING AND DRIVE SALES

Customers and clients are increasingly motivated to be more sustainable. Sustainability practices are a key decisionmaking factor for conference, meeting, and event managers. Taking Climate Action helps you deliver on the expectations of your customers, clients, and your staff.

CLIMATE ACTION AREAS THAT CAN HELP REDUCE EMISSIONS

Managing energy more efficiently

Switching to renewable energy

Managing all waste (especially food waste) more efficiently

Conserving water

Switching to renewable options for transport

Creating more sustainable buildings

Sourcing locally

GALLEY COVE, CROOKHAVEN, CO. CORK

The global & national context

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS AND AGENDA 2030

In 2015, world leaders came together to agree a global framework for Sustainable Development, known as Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The UN Agreement that supports these goals is commonly referred to as Agenda 2030. There are 17 interlinked goals across Climate Action, community, biodiversity, equality, poverty, education, health, and the economy. The aim is to achieve them by 2030,

working together to end poverty, protect the planet and strive for peace and prosperity.

193 countries, including Ireland, signed up to Agenda 2030, showing commitment to a sustainable future.

THE SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS AND AGENDA 2030

The World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) says “Climate Action is understood as the efforts to measure and reduce greenhouse gas emissions and strengthen adaptive capacity to climate induced impacts”.

Goal 13 relates to Climate Action and calls for urgent action to combat climate change. The Global Goal is

to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

To achieve this, it is necessary to reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions. The Irish Government has committed to cutting emissions in half by 2030 and to achieving net zero emissions by 2050, which means removing almost all emissions from business.

The global & national context

UNDERSTANDING YOUR CARBON FOOTPRINT

Here, we discuss what carbon footprint means for your business and how you can reduce this going forward. Learn about different types of emissions and the actions you can take to reduce these emissions.

Jargon Buster CARBON FOOTPRINT EXPLAINED

’Carbon Footprint’ is the term used to describe the total amount of emissions produced by your business in a calendar year, think of it as the greenhouse gas emissions caused directly or indirectly by your business. It is measured in metric tonnes of carbon per annum.

CLIFDEN ECO BEACH AND CARAVANNING PARK, CO. GALWAY

The global & national context

EMISSIONS EXPLAINED

Let’s discuss the different types of emissions and how you can take various actions to combat the impacts of these emissions.

SCOPE 1 GREENHOUSE GAS

Emissions your business produces directly e.g., through burning fossil fuels such as gas/oil to run your heating system.

SCOPE 2 GREENHOUSE GAS

Emissions your business produces indirectly e.g., when you import electricity produced by power stations burning fossil fuel.

SCOPE 3 EMISSIONS

All the emissions not directly owned/controlled by your business, but that you are

indirectly responsible for through your supply chain e.g., through the products you buy from suppliers such as food.

THE SCOPE BREAKDOWN

Emissions are categorised as either Scope 1, Scope 2, or Scope 3. Let’s identify actions for all three emission types:

SCOPE 1 - ACTIONS

Use less energy derived from fossil fuels.

Implement energy efficiency measures – through staff training and more efficient equipment.

TOP TIP

SCOPE 2 - ACTIONS SCOPE 3 - ACTIONS

Switch to renewable electricity sources.

Switch to a certified green electricity supplier.

Reduce general waste.

Minimize food waste.

Conserve water.

Encourage and empower customers and staff to travel sustainably.

Support biodiversity.

You can measure your Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions all you need are figures for annual consumption of fuel and electricity. It’s more difficult to precisely measure Scope 3 emissions, but you can measure and track reductions over time.

When you have done everything possible internally to reduce carbon emissions, consider buying carbon offsets i.e. credits purchased to negate a carbon footprint.

Jargon Buster

GREENHOUSE GASES (GHGS)

These are gases in the earth's atmosphere that allow the sun's rays to pass through and warm the planet, but prevent the warmth from escaping the atmosphere into space. Without them, Earth would be too cold to sustain life. There are several different greenhouse gases: carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and ozone. The gases have different impacts on global warming methane has about 23 times the impact of carbon dioxide.

CO2: CARBON DIOXIDE

As it’s the most prevalent gas (after water vapour), it has become the proxy by which we speak about and measure greenhouse gas emissions.

How to kickstart your Climate Action journey

Who should be on the Green Team?

The Green Team may vary in size, consider including:

a Green Leader or Green Champion

general managers and heads of department

the head chef and other chefs

staff from finance and purchasing

other staff as appropriate e.g., housekeeping for waste, kitchen porter or grounds maintenance for water

8 STEPS OF YOUR CLIMATE ACTION JOURNEY:

DEMONSTRATE COMMITMENT OF OWNERS AND SENIOR MANAGEMENT

01

Committed leadership from leaders and managers is the essential first step. Reducing carbon emissions is a journey and staff members need to get the time and training to implement changes. This comes through top level management making a conscious decision to change and creating the conditions for that to happen.

02

SET UP A GREEN TEAM AND APPOINT A GREEN CHAMPION

The Green Team is responsible for:  gathering data to measure the sustainability of the business  creating and implementing the Climate Action plan  developing training and awareness raising initiatives  reviewing actions undertaken and planning future actions

Choose a Green Leader who is respected and who has a natural passion for the area.

03 RAISE STAFF AWARENESS OF YOUR CLIMATE ACTION PLAN

A key role for the Green Team is to communicate the Climate Action policy to staff. All team members should be aware of your Climate Action plan and the ways they can help achieve targets. Make training available on waste prevention and segregation, efficient use of equipment and conserving water.

Kickstart your Climate Action journey

Jargon Buster

GREENWASHING

Describes the practice of promoting a business, product, or service as environmentally responsible when it’s not. It’s a practice of making false and misleading claims about one’s green credentials.

04 GATHER AND REVIEW DATA

Task the Green Team with gathering Data on energy consumption, water consumption and waste generation, so you can estimate the carbon footprint of your business.

Establish your starting point as this is the benchmark against which you can compare future performance. Get the information you need from your service provider bills, including the total amount of energy consumed by your business and the total costs.

05 CALCULATE YOUR CARBON FOOTPRINT

Once you know your energy and water usage and your waste weight data, use the Carbon Calculator to estimate your on-site carbon footprint.

06

IDENTIFY IMPROVEMENT TARGETS AND ACTIONS

The Green Team can brainstorm actions that reduce emissions by:  inviting suggestions from staff.  looking at what other businesses are doing.

 reviewing the suggested actions in our companion

guides on Energy, Water, Waste, Meetings & Events, Festivals, Biodiversity and Carbon Off-setting.

 reviewing options suggested in other Government guidance (check out the resources in each section of this roadmap)

07

PREPARE AND IMPLEMENT AN IMPROVEMENT ACTION PLAN

It’s time to prioritise and identify actions. Decide what success looks like, be realistic about the time and resources available and set targets. Invite suggestions

FALSE BAY, CONNEMARA, CO. GALWAY

from staff on how the Climate Action Plan could be implemented, introducing incentives or reward schemes that will motivate your team to get involved.

Estimate expected costs and cost savings for each action and consider the cost benefit. Not every action costs money and there are ‘early wins’ that require no or low investment.

Set specific, measurable goals and assign a person/team and deadline to each one.

Below is a sample template for an Improvement Action Plan.

08REVIEW AND REPORT ON PROGRESS

Monitor progress so you can track changes to your carbon footprint over time:  task your Green Team to meet periodically e.g., monthly  have a set agenda for each meeting:

• review of progress against agreed actions

• identification of any additional supports required to complete

• analysis of why actions were successful or not

• review of actual savings achieved versus expected

• feedback from the team members and wider staff

• suggestions for improvement or further training

• targets for next period

Undertaking regular reviews, providing updates on progress, and highlighting any issues you have encountered will help to alleviate fears of greenwashing and prevent negative feedback.

CLIFDEN ECO BEACH AND CARAVANNING

5 tips for priority Climate Actions

Our Climate Action guides are packed with ideas to help reduce your carbon footprint. Before you dive in to the other guides, here are the key priorities to kickstart your journey.

1 Measure and monitor Establish how much energy your business uses and commit to tracking this over time. Your service provider can help with sharing annual consumption figures.

2 Wherever possible, switch to a Green Energy supplier or a renewable energy source such as solar PV (photovoltaics), wood pellet, bio-LPG (Liquefied Petroleum Gas), heat pumps, and wind. Learn more about becoming energy efficient on Fáilte Ireland’s Business Supports Hub.

3 Introduce a strict policy of turning off all equipment when not in use.

4 Focus on food and minimise food waste.

5 Switch to a local supplier for food or materials that you regularly purchase – not only does this reduce transport costs and emissions, but it also supports the local economy.

KEY RESOURCES

Fáilte Ireland Business Supports Hub has information on energy and food waste management training.

Irish Water provides free online Water Stewardship Training.

Mywaste.ie has lots of ideas and resources to help improve waste management.

The SEAI Energy Academy provides free online energy training for tourism businesses to help staff identify energy and cost savings for your business. Find resources to help run behaviour change campaigns in the workplace.

BEN BULBEN MOUNTAIN, CO. SLIGO

Climate Action Guides

Explore our series of guides as part of Fáilte Ireland’s Driving Action on Climate Change in tourism businesses. You can find links to all the others in the series to help you on your climate action journey here.

CLIMATE ACTION STORY

Learn how to promote your Climate Action initiatives to the consumer.

ERRIGAL MOUNTAIN, CO. DONEGAL

HOW TO FIND OUT MORE

Just click on the covers below to access each guide in our series.

ENERGY MANAGEMENT

Learn how minimising energy consumption using renewable energy alternatives will save costs and reduce carbon emissions.

WATER MANAGEMENT

Explore our guide for suggestions on how your business can reduce water consumption, resulting in a lower water bill.

WASTE MANAGEMENT

Find out how waste management can reduce your carbon footprint which can directly lead to cost-savings.

CARBON OFFSETTING

Read our advice for tourism businesses who wish to complement their reduction strategies by offsetting emissions.

BIODIVERSITY

Find out how enhancing biodiversity in your business or location is a great place to start actioning climate change.

MEETINGS AND EVENTS

Learn how to run a climate-friendly meeting or event that incorporates environmental considerations.

FESTIVALS

Discover more about the importance of festivals for climate action from applying influence and inspiration to engaging with audiences.