In readiness for summer travel, itmustbeNOW.com (NOW) is launching the NOW Offset Carbon tool, a carbon calculator and offset technology powered by South Pole. Live on the website from 25 June, the tool provides travellers with confidence when offsetting their carbon emissions, contributing to specific projects around the world.
This new tool has been created in strategic partnership with South Pole, a consultancy that provides solutions worldwide on all sustainability issues, as part of NOW's wider dual purpose of providing useful resources for conscientious travellers, as well as proposing simple and effective sustainability solutions for hoteliers.
As well as offsetting carbon emissions, NOW has announced its top 25 tips for travelling sustainably, suggesting smarter choices from the destinations and modes of travel we choose, to the sunscreen we buy and booking platforms we use. The full list of 25 can be viewed on the NOW website here.
NOW was launched as a sustainable travel and tourism initiative in April 2017 by Onno and Alexa Poortier, in alliance with industry advisory groups. Two years on, they are heading towards 50 hotels approved in the NOW Track & Book section (soon to be uploaded onto the site), with more in the pipeline and a partnership in place with Preferred Hotels & Resorts.
Looking ahead, the new NOW Guide to Sustainable Travel is planned for late 2019, featuring hotels approved and listed in the NOW Track & Book. The initial focus will be on properties worldwide, while a second version will include cities, resorts and retreats.
NOW co-founder Alexa Poortier said, “There is an urgent need for the travel industry - as well as travellers - to step up and take action immediately. It should no longer be referred to as climate change, but as a 'climate emergency'. People will always want to travel, and our purpose is to help them make smarter and sustainable choices in the ways they do it."
NOW provides a one-stop-shop for inspiration, planning and booking sustainable travel, as well as helping to make a practical difference through offsetting carbon emissions. Travellers can discover extraordinary and responsible properties around the world, that go further and are certified by EarthCheck, and then book directly through the NOW Track and Book tool, with no commissions charged. NOW also offers a 'solution' for inspiring and responsible properties that want to commit to sustainability, but need a structure, an accredited sustainability programme, and technologies to track and communicate social and environmental sustainability performance.
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