Global Ecotourism Conference 2007 - Oslo Forum on: Corporate Social and Environmental Responsibility in Travel & Tourism
CSR – Practicing What You Preach Jane Crouch Responsible Travel Manager Intrepid Travel jcrouch@intrepidtravel.com
Abstract: The concept of CSR - Corporate Social and Environmental Responsibility is widely discussed in relation to the performance of many industries, but is the travel industry lagging behind? In this presentation I look at the business case for CSR and practical ways it can be applied across the spectrum of a travel and tourism business, drawing upon examples of its practical application at tour operators, Intrepid Travel. I look at the common criticisms of CSR and conclude with why CSR practices, well applied, can benefit a business.
Introducing Jane‌ Jane is the Responsible Travel Manager for Intrepid Travel. Intrepid Travel operates affordable small group adventures, currently in 98 countries. Jane has been with Intrepid for over 10 years, starting as a group leader in Vietnam and Borneo in 1996. She's passionate about travelling in a way that's positive and rewarding for all those involved. After leading about 65 trips and having countless memorable experiences, Jane hung up the backpack in early 2000 to take up the position of Responsible Travel Manager based in Intrepid's head office in Melbourne. The position includes coordinating the preparation of Responsible Travel guidelines for all the regions visited, training staff and generally doing whatever's possible to help ensure Intrepid is practicing what they preach as best as possible. In 2002 Jane established The Intrepid Foundation, providing travellers with a unique opportunity to provide support to grass roots community development projects operated by local and international NGOs. In addition to this role, in the past 6 years Jane has researched and run Intrepid's trips to East Timor - an opportunity to set up a model of sustainable tourism in the world's newest nation. Last year, Jane took extended long service leave to volunteer there working on tourism development with the Timor-Leste Government.
NB. 'Conversational' words, not on the Powerpoint presentation, are written in italics.
Introduction Thank-you for your attendance at this forum and thank-you to the conference organisers, TIES, for inviting me to speak. CSR appears to be the current popular buzz-phrase or the 'flavour of the month'. Not a day goes by without an article related to CSR appearing in the popular press in Australia, and there is perhaps the same phenomenon in most Western countries. I was in the UK last week and picked up The Sunday Times supplement on "Companies that Count" – measuring, managing and reporting responsible business practise. They reported on the Top 100 companies for corporate responsibility. Of their 'Top 100', there was one business classified as 'leisure and hotels' and four 'transport' businesses, but aside from them – for an industry that's classified as the 'world's biggest' and 'fastest growing', the lack of representation of the travel and tourism industry was glaring In this brief presentation I will share some practical application of CSR, drawing upon some examples from Intrepid Travel, where I work. A little information about Intrepid Travel: • Operate affordable small group adventures trips. • Commenced in 1989 with a trip in Thailand. • Directors are the original founders: Darrell Wade and Geoff Manchester and the core values of the business are aligned with their personal values. • Currently in 98 countries, through Asia, Australasia, Pacific, Middle East, Europe, Africa & Latin America. • 471 different trips this year – from 6 to 60 days in length. • 7 different styles of trips including original style, family and active. • 50,000 travellers this year, come from all around the world. We are privileged to travel to many extraordinary places and communities around the globe, like these…(illustrated in several photos – no space here!) And we wish to do as much as we can to honour that privilege.
Some definitions to clarify…and have us all on the same 'page'… CSR Definition from the World Business Council for Sustainable Development: "Corporate social responsibility is the continuing commitment by business to contribute to economic development while improving the quality of life of the workforce and their families as well as of the community and society at large." Sustainability A definition from that very famous Norwegian, and former Prime Minister of Norway, Gro Harlem Brundtland who championed the cause of sustainable development (and Ban Ki Moon recently named her as one of three UN special envoys for climate change). “Meeting the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs.” Brundtland – 1987
Or from a travel operators perspective: Travelling in a way that respects and benefits local people, their culture and the environment – and will enable our children to visit these places and find them just as special as we did.
Triple bottom line Is often spoken of as the measures of CSR, evaluating the Social + Environmental + Economic performance of a business OR People + Planet + Profit
Pineapple farmer in a Dusun community in Sabah.
Business case for CSR Recognition that business and society are interdependent Legality - Respecting and obeying the laws of the countries you operate in. For example, paying taxes and looking after employees health and safety. As Intrepid has grown we've in recent years established separate operating companies in many of the places we operate in to increase our ability to employ local people and operate under the legal and taxation systems of the country. Eg Intrepid companies Thailand, Indochina, India, Africa and South America and soon in China. Brand differentiation Your responsible travel (RT) or sustainable tourism practices help your company image (seen as genuine, honest & authentic) and build staff and customer loyalty. Human resources Practising good CSR practices will help your business attract the ‘right’ sort of employees and will help with staff retention – which ultimately saves you money in recruitment and training and helps to build strong loyalty, experience and a better product. Manage risk Will help protect the company reputation, particularly if you do err – you will be recognised in your efforts to try and do 'the right thing'.
I'll break up CSR practices under the headings of 'People' and 'Planet'.
People – your stakeholders – its doing the ‘right thing’ by… Your employees Your service providers Your customers Your hosts Looking at each group… Your employees - fair conditions: • offering equitable salaries • encouraging personal growth through regular performance feedback • structured training programs and study support (eg paying half the Uni fees of employees studying in areas relevant to their work) I can't emphasise enough about the value of putting resources into thorough and ongoing training of your staff. All the nicely written policy in the world is worthless if your employees aren't trained in the practical implementation of the policy. You've all probably experienced the'hanging up your towels in the hotel bathroom' situation to help 'save the planet' and then found that the cleaning staff changed them anyway as they have just been trained to leave the bathroom at a certain standard of neatness and order. • career and volunteering opportunities • benefits aligned to staff interests eg flexible hours, additional leave, travel discounts (& a dog friendly office!) • treated with respect, integrity & honesty – behaviour rewarded through performance reviews • offer rewards and incentives to stimulate high performance • comply with local employment laws Service providers – we consider our local friends and they're critical to the success of Intrepid. • Aim to spread the financial benefits amongst local people and operators. • Support and encourage fair employment practices. Be aware of local exploitive practices and avoid being a party to them. • Provide employment and leadership opportunities for local people. • Use local operators that adhere to our Responsible Travel philosophies and provide the best possible service to our travellers and staff.
'Superman' (on right) has been guiding with Intrepid in Northern Thailand for more than 10 years.
Your customers Not always right but respected! We have found in Asia where the issue of 'saving face' is important, we've had to teach the local staff suitable polite ways of speaking to our travellers when their behaviour might be inappropriate – rather than them just 'allowing' a negative behaviour or perhaps unsuitable dress to continue due to concern about causing offence. One way is for them to practise saying to a traveller "in our culture we…". • We educate travellers about how and why we choose to travel this way – by providing suitable information in our literature, web-site, hotel foyers, group meetings etc – balanced information, conveyed positively and not preachy. • Educate about local customs and culture – particularly through the group leaders example. • Provide safe trips for travellers and staff – of course it's best for business if the travellers make it home safe and sound! Group leaders receive extensive safety training and the accommodation, transport and included activities on a trip are assessed against minimum standards of safety and audited annually. • Provide fun enjoyable trips to travellers. If the travellers have a positive experience and make local friends along the way, they will then become the best practitioners of responsible travel through the 'ambassadorial' role that they take on when they share their positive experiences after they go home. • Give our travellers the best possible value – ensuring they get what they paid for and more. • And provide opportunities for travellers to interact with local people and make meaningful connections. You can take travellers to amazing sites, fabulous natural places, fascinating museums etc, but the experiences they are most likely going to value in the months and years down the track is the enriching experiences they had engaging with the local people - making local friends.
Your hosts and the wider community – the most important stakeholders • Limit the negative impacts to daily lifestyles of local people not involved with our groups – particularly in small and remote communities. Eg just dropping into a local school to kick a soccer ball around with the kids may be more disruptive than constructive – it's having an awareness of your impacts and making judgment calls on what is appropriate. • Actively ban staff or passenger participation in or endorsement of commercial sexual activities or illegal drug use on Intrepid trips. Very much a matter of respect and integrity and of observing the laws. We don't like to have a whole bunch of rules at Intrepid but we certainly take these issues very seriously, and our group leaders are authorised to request a passenger leaves a trip, should they offend. • Work to prevent the exploitation of children in tourism – through refusing child labour eg underage porters; and very importantly being aware of the insidious problem of child sexual exploitation through tourism. Our group leaders are taught about reporting procedures should they be aware of a possible offender (eg staying at the same hotel). We work closely with and support ECPAT internationally – the acronym stands for ' End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes', and now called Child Wise in Australia. It's an issue that many tourism operators turn a blind eye to, perhaps because they think it's nothing
to do with them, or perhaps because they benefit in some way from it, or whatever the reason – I would encourage all travel businesses to support the experts in this area – ECPAT (or Child Wise in Australia).
Provide support to organisations and local communities. This can be done in a myriad of ways through local partnerships. At Intrepid Travel we established The Intrepid Foundation – in 2002, to bring under one banner, all of our charitable support, to increase our support and improve transparency.
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Support a range of activities including: health care, education, human rights, child welfare, sustainable development, environmental and wildlife protection. Intrepid Travel matches all public donations dollar for dollar and pays all the administration costs – the 'carrots' offered to travellers to donate. In last 3 years over AUD$812,000 has been raised for over 30 beneficiary projects. Asian Tsunami Appeal raised >$225,000 for the work of Plan and Medecins Sans Frontieres in the effected countries. The Indochina Children’s Fund for Mike raised $60,000. (Mike Matsushita, a former group leader for Intrepid in Indochina, was killed in the London train bombings in 2005.)
There are 2 ways offered to support: The Intrepid Community Project Fund - Donations go to grassroots work of NGOs identified as making a valuable contribution to the local community. Includes many small organisations or projects that may be visited during an Intrepid trip. There are currently more than 22 Community Projects and we hope to grow this to 30 by the end of the year. For example:
Deepalaya in India
Braille Without Borders, Tibet
The Intrepid Perpetual Support Fund Donations are divided each year: - half is retained in the account to conserve and grow capital for the future, - half into an annual grants pool to 10 well respected organisations Intrepid has had a long relationship with. The current beneficiaries are: Amnesty International Australia CHILD WISE, ECPAT in Australia Medecins Sans Frontieres Plan The Fred Hollows Foundation WWF — TRAFFIC Greenpeace WSPA — World Society for the Protection of Animals TreeProject Australian Conservation Foundation – Asia/Pacific program
Planet • Use locally owned infrastructure for accommodation and transport where possible. Reducing the demand for special tourist infrastructure, putting monies into local hands and creating more opportunities to meet local people and experience some of their way of life. • Limit the physical impact of trips in all destination communities-particularly sensitive natural and cultural environments. Group leaders trained in very comprehensive environmental policy. • Actively discourage the participation of travellers in activities which exploit animals - wild or domestic. We particularly go on the advice of several partners eg WSPA – the World Society for the Protection of Animals, and TRAFFIC – who work to reduce the trade in endangered species; plus several local animal welfare agencies that work to protect animals working in tourism eg elephants in Thailand, donkeys and horses in Egypt.
Climate Change - Our travellers feedback Survey in Intrepid Express, our weekly e-newsletter that goes out to nearly 400,000 subscribers, found from 1743 respondents: • 97% believe it is “somewhat to very" important that climate change be part of Intrepid's responsible travel commitments.
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70% told us they have a "good to very good" understanding of the issues relating to climate change and 50% are familiar with the process of carbon offsetting. • 80% said they would be happy to pay 4% extra on their airfare to offset the carbon emissions and a significant 87% said they would be willing to pay USD1.00 a day to offset the land component of their trip.
In December 2006 Intrepid announced the goal of becoming a carbon neutral company by end of 2009. What are Intrepid doing? • First step - identify areas we could measure our carbon foot print, then take steps to reduce: in offices, brochures, staff travel, our trips • Offices & retail stores - energy and water audit. • To encourage our clients to better understand the issues of climate change, we offered ticket refunds to people to see ‘An Inconvenient Truth’. 3,900 people took up our offer and we refunded AUD$38,765.80 in ticket costs. • Australian staff – offered discount home audits & gifts of compact fluorescents. Offsetting - the last option • First step - mandatory carbon offsetting of all exit flights from January 1st 2007- starting with exit Australia. • Intrepid is conducting a 4 month internal review (in May 07). • Offsetting of staff flights made compulsory. • This payment is made to an offset provider, Origin Energy. (www.originenergy.com.au) • Origin Energy compensate Intrepid flight emissions by investing in programs in: methane destruction, tree planting, home energy efficiency and waste composting. • These projects are audited by a third party. • Intrepid make NO profit from carbon offsetting – we do not add any mark-up to the mandatory offsetting of flights from Australia. We want to do as much as we can to encourage people to accept the costs. We know we are losing some flight sales but hope that in time as the groundswell of public understanding grows, more people will accept the additional cost as part of the 'price' of travel.
Partnerships & Memberships with many international and local organisations, is an invaluable way we can tap into their areas of expertise and continually learn ways we can improve. For example, many organisations that are represented here at this conference: TIES – The International Ecotourism Society IIPT – International Institute for Peace Through Tourism STI - Sustainable Travel International Eco-Club ATA- Aboriginal Tourism Australia
Measuring, monitoring & reporting your CSR efforts • Can be done through external certification or accreditation schemes. • At Intrepid, we have created a system of Annual Trip Evaluations (ATEs) evaluating Responsible Travel and Safety performance of all of our trips. They assess: - Economic impacts - Physical impacts - Social impacts & - Safety management • Passenger feedback entered on-line, asking specific questions about our responsible travel performance. • Quarterly group leader reviews – where they are assessed on their responsible travel performance. • Staff surveys eg Hewitt Survey, created by this international HR company www.hewittassociates.com Helps measure how desirable an employer we are. • CSR reporting – a valuable way of helping improve corporate governance, of setting goals and measures, and of helping convey to all stakeholders the company standards, what is expected of them and of what they should expect from the company. Some criticisms of CSR include • That the goal of the company should be to maximise profits to shareholders, not spend resources on the environment, communities or charitable works. • Takes the focus away from the prime business purpose. • It's green washing – a creation of a firm’s marketing department, rather than actual practices. Do you walk the talk? • That it’s a distraction from the companies' less than ethical behaviour. We've all seen examples of this from less than ethical or 'green' businesses such as some in the tobacco industry, fuel industry, chemical companies etc.
Good CSR / Concluding remarks Puts resources into all areas of the business, not just supporting a few charities or carbon offsetting. People + Planet → Profits At Intrepid we've learnt that if you work hard at practicing sound values across all aspects of your business, your profit doesn't need to be compromised. We believe it helps to bring us business. Around 40% of our travellers are repeat business. Working in an area of business that has relatively low margins and operating in a volatile environment, where problems like SARS or terrorism can dramatically effect your business, or even close you down overnight, we believe to be 'sustainable' in all senses of the word, we can't afford NOT to practise good CSR. You can “Do well by doing good”. Thank-you.