Introduction: The Evolution of Sustainable Travel

The call for sustainable travel has grown louder and more urgent as awareness of climate change and environmental degradation increases. What began decades ago as a niche concern for ecotourists has evolved into a critical imperative for the entire industry, from major airlines and hotel chains to tour operators and individual travelers. Early efforts often focused on basic conservation measures, responsible tourism practices, and raising traveler awareness.

As the scale of the climate crisis became clearer, the focus shifted towards measuring and mitigating carbon emissions, recognizing travel's significant footprint. This led to the popularization of concepts like carbon footprint calculation (using tools like the ICAO Carbon Emissions Calculator for flights, which estimates emissions based on factors like distance and fuel consumption) and, subsequently, carbon offsetting. While offsetting provided a way for travelers and businesses to 'compensate' for their emissions, it was often viewed as an external solution. However, the industry is now embracing more integrated and direct approaches to sustainability, leading to the rise of concepts like 'insetting'. This evolution reflects a deeper understanding that true sustainability requires fundamental changes within the travel value chain itself, not just external compensation.

Understanding Carbon Offsetting: A Quick Recap

Before diving into insetting, it's helpful to quickly recap carbon offsetting, as it provides the contrast necessary to understand the newer concept. Based on research definitions, **offsetting** involves compensating for an organization's emissions by funding projects *outside* its value chain that reduce or remove an equivalent amount of carbon dioxide (CO₂) from the atmosphere. Think of it as a transactional process: you emit carbon here, and you pay for a project elsewhere (like a renewable energy farm or a reforestation initiative in another country) to theoretically counteract that emission.

The idea is simple: greenhouse gases have the same impact wherever they are emitted or reduced, so a reduction elsewhere can balance out an emission here. Offsetting projects are typically verified by third parties to ensure they are real, additional (wouldn't have happened without the carbon finance), and permanent. For the travel industry, offsetting has allowed companies and travelers to claim 'carbon neutrality' by purchasing credits corresponding to their estimated emissions from flights, accommodation, or activities. While offsetting has played a role in directing finance towards climate projects and raising awareness, it is often criticized for being an external fix that doesn't necessarily drive internal emission reductions within the company's own operations or supply chain. Research indicates that offsetting is generally considered lower on the carbon hierarchy than direct emission reduction or removal.

What is Insetting?

This is where **insetting** emerges as a distinct and, in many ways, more impactful strategy for sustainable travel. Unlike offsetting, which is external and transactional, insetting is fundamentally about integrating sustainable practices and initiatives directly *into* a business's own operations, supply chains, or stakeholder relationships to reduce or remove emissions. According to research, it involves a company's direct investment *within* its value chain to reduce emissions and store carbon.

The core principle of insetting is to address emissions and environmental impacts at their source within the company's sphere of influence. This means investing in projects and practices involving suppliers, partners, employees, and even customers, rather than funding unrelated projects far away. The goal, as highlighted by research, is avoiding, reducing, or sequestering upstream or downstream carbon emissions directly within the company's activities or those it directly influences. Insetting often involves tangible, on-the-ground practices like regenerative agriculture within food supply chains, agroforestry linked to sourcing materials, or investing in sustainable aviation fuels (SAF) and maritime biofuels for transportation – initiatives that are directly connected to how the travel company operates or what it buys.

The key difference, as research emphasizes, is that offsetting benefits external projects, while insetting enhances a company's overall sustainability and strengthens supply chain resilience by focusing actions within the company's own value chain.

Benefits of Insetting for Travelers and Businesses

Insetting offers a compelling suite of benefits for both travel businesses and, indirectly, the travelers who support them. Research points to numerous advantages:

• Enhances Overall Sustainability: By tackling emissions and environmental issues within their own operations and supply chains, companies build a more genuinely sustainable business model from the inside out.
• Strengthens Supply Chain Resilience: Investing in sustainable practices within the supply chain, such as supporting farmers transitioning to regenerative methods, can lead to more stable, reliable, and environmentally sound sources of goods and services crucial for travel (e.g., food for hotels, materials for infrastructure).
• Creates Positive Impacts Within the Sphere of Influence: Insetting projects often directly benefit the ecosystems and communities that a travel business interacts with. This could mean improved local environments around resorts, better livelihoods for local suppliers, or enhanced biodiversity in areas critical to tourism.
• Fosters Deeper Relationships with Third Parties: Collaborating with suppliers and partners on insetting initiatives builds stronger, more collaborative relationships focused on shared sustainability goals.
• Facilitates Transition to Resilient and Regenerative Business Models: Insetting encourages businesses to move beyond simply minimizing harm towards actively restoring and regenerating ecosystems and communities within their value chain.
• Can Reduce Scope 3 Emissions: Business travel and supply chain activities typically fall under Scope 3 emissions (indirect emissions from sources not owned or controlled by the company). Research confirms that insetting is particularly relevant and effective for addressing these hard-to-abate Scope 3 emissions, which often constitute the majority of a business's carbon footprint.
• Offers Long-Term Cost Benefits: While there might be initial investment, initiatives like improving energy efficiency, optimizing logistics, or reducing waste within the supply chain can lead to significant operational cost savings over time.
• Demonstrates Commitment and Enhances Brand Image: Investing directly in their own value chain signals a deeper, more credible commitment to sustainability than solely relying on external offsets. This resonates with increasingly environmentally conscious travelers and can significantly enhance brand reputation.
• Makes Collective Climate Action Accessible: By working with suppliers and partners, companies can enable collective action on climate within their specific industry or value chain.

For the traveler, choosing a company committed to insetting means supporting a business that is actively working to reduce its environmental footprint at the source, contributing to positive change in the places they visit and the supply chains that support their travel experience.

Examples of Insetting Initiatives

Insetting is being implemented across various sectors, including travel. Research provides several compelling examples:

• Reforestation and Agroforestry: While reforestation can be an offset project, insetting involves planting trees amid crops *within a company's specific agricultural supply chain* (e.g., for food served in hotels or timber used in construction) to create carbon sinks, enhance biodiversity, and improve soil health directly impacting the supplier's operation. Nespresso, for instance, collaborated with coffee federations on an agroforestry project across Colombia, Guatemala, and Ethiopia, directly within its core coffee supply chain.
• Renewable Energy Projects Within Operations: Investing in solar panels on hotel roofs, wind turbines at corporate campuses, or supporting suppliers in adopting renewable energy sources directly reduces the company's Scope 1 or Scope 2 emissions, or impacts Scope 3 emissions from its suppliers. The Travel Corporation is reinvesting money back into the company to improve its own energy efficiency.
• Regenerative Agriculture: Supporting food or textile suppliers (relevant for hotel linens, uniforms, etc.) in adopting farming practices that restore soil health, sequester carbon, improve water cycles, and enhance biodiversity on the lands producing goods for the company's use.
• Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF): For airlines and businesses whose employees fly frequently, investing in or purchasing SAF is a key example of insetting. SAF, derived from sustainable feedstocks, can reduce emissions by up to 80% compared to traditional jet fuel. Companies can even acquire Scope 3 credits from airlines using SAF, directly addressing emissions related to business travel.
• Improved Logistics & Route Planning: Implementing better logistics, driver training programs, and optimized route planning for delivering supplies to hotels or transferring guests reduces fuel consumption and emissions directly within the company's operational logistics. Marriott International is cited for using sustainable logistics to cut down on waste and energy use.
• Circular Economy Practices: Implementing recycling and reuse systems for materials like linens, water, or food waste within hotels and resorts reduces waste and the associated carbon footprint within the company's direct operations.
• Sustainable Supply Chain Practices: Beyond agriculture, this includes adopting sustainable sourcing for construction materials, amenities, or retail products sold. It involves working with suppliers to reduce waste, water usage, and energy consumption in their own facilities producing goods for the travel company.
• Maritime Insetting: For cruise lines or companies relying on shipping for supplies, using biofuels derived from regenerative sources directly reduces emissions from maritime transport within their supply chain.

These examples demonstrate how companies are moving beyond simply paying to offset and are instead investing in tangible changes within their own system to reduce environmental impact.

Finding and Evaluating Credible Insetting Projects

For a travel business considering insetting, the process isn't about finding an external project to support, but rather identifying opportunities for sustainability improvements *within its own value chain*. This requires a deep understanding of their operations and supply network.

Here's a simplified look at how companies approach this, drawing on the principles of insetting:

1. Map the Value Chain and Identify Emission Hotspots: The first step is to thoroughly understand all the activities and suppliers involved in delivering their service, from where food comes from, to how laundry is done, how energy is generated, how guests travel to destinations, and where waste goes. Carbon footprint calculations (covering Scope 1, 2, and crucially, Scope 3 emissions like business travel and supply chain) are essential here. Research indicates Scope 3 emissions often dominate a company's footprint, making them prime targets for insetting.
2. Identify Opportunities for Reduction/Removal Within Hotspots: Once hotspots are identified, the company looks for ways to directly reduce or remove emissions within those areas. If food supply is a hotspot, can they work with farmers on regenerative practices? If transport is key, can they invest in SAF or electric vehicles? If energy is a major factor, can they install renewables on-site or help key suppliers do so?
3. Develop Projects with Suppliers/Partners: Insetting projects are often collaborative. A hotel chain might work directly with its linen supplier to reduce water and energy use, or with a local farmer to source food grown using low-carbon methods.
4. Invest Directly: The company invests its own resources (capital, expertise, staff time) into these internal or supply-chain projects. This isn't buying credits; it's funding operational or supply chain transformation.
5. Measure and Verify Impact: Crucially, the impact of these insetting projects must be measured. While formal insetting accounting standards are still evolving compared to offsetting, the company needs to track emission reductions, carbon sequestration (if applicable), and other environmental/social benefits achieved within its value chain.

For travelers, evaluating a company's insetting efforts involves looking for transparency about their supply chain, concrete examples of projects they are funding or implementing within their operations (like those mentioned in the previous section), and evidence of measurable impact, rather than just a focus on purchasing external credits.

Challenges and Limitations of Insetting

While insetting offers a more integrated approach to sustainability, it's not without its difficulties. Research points to several challenges:

• Requires Developing New Processes and Resources: Implementing insetting strategies often necessitates significant internal changes – developing new business processes, acquiring new resources (e.g., expertise in sustainable agriculture, supply chain mapping tools), and potentially developing new supply chains or even products.
• Can Be a Long and Disruptive Process: Transforming supply chains or internal operations takes time. It can be a long process that potentially disrupts existing operations while the new, sustainable methods are implemented and scaled.
• Comes With a Price Tag: While promising long-term savings, the initial investment required for insetting can be substantial. Funding regenerative agriculture transitions for suppliers, investing in SAF, or installing large-scale renewable energy infrastructure requires significant capital investment.
• Requires Extensive Data Collection: Accurately mapping the value chain and measuring the impact of insetting projects requires collecting detailed data from all aspects of the company's operations and its suppliers. Obtaining this data, particularly for complex Scope 3 emissions across numerous third parties, can be difficult and requires robust tracking systems.

These limitations mean that insetting requires strong commitment, strategic planning, and often significant investment from businesses. It's a deeper form of engagement than simply purchasing offset credits.

Insetting as Part of a Broader Sustainability Strategy

It's crucial to view insetting not as a standalone solution, but as a key component within a comprehensive sustainability strategy. According to research, there is an established carbon hierarchy that prioritizes actions:

1. Reduce: Minimize emissions and environmental impact at the source wherever possible. This is the most important step (e.g., improving fuel efficiency, reducing waste, using less energy).
2. Remove: Actively remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere (e.g., through reforestation on owned land).
3. Insetting: Integrate sustainable practices within the value chain to further reduce/remove emissions, particularly Scope 3.
4. Offsetting: As a last resort, compensate for remaining unavoidable emissions by funding external projects.

This hierarchy underscores that direct reduction of emissions (Scope 1 and 2 first, then Scope 3) must be the priority. Insetting is a powerful tool specifically for tackling the complex Scope 3 emissions – those from business travel, procurement, transportation, waste, and other upstream and downstream activities – which, as research notes, often make up the largest portion of a company's carbon footprint.

A travel company committed to true sustainability will be working on multiple fronts: optimizing its direct operations (Scope 1 & 2), implementing insetting initiatives within its supply chain and transport (Scope 3), and potentially using high-quality offsetting for any remaining, unavoidable emissions. Intrepid Travel, for instance, has committed to significant Scope 1 and 2 emission cuts while also engaging in broader sustainability efforts that would encompass Scope 3 insetting-like actions.

Conclusion: The Future of Sustainable Travel

The journey towards truly sustainable travel is ongoing, marked by evolving strategies and a deepening commitment from responsible actors. While carbon offsetting played a role in initial awareness and climate finance, insetting represents a significant step forward – a move from external compensation to integrated transformation. By focusing on reducing and removing emissions directly within their own value chains, travel companies using insetting are building more resilient, responsible, and regenerative business models.

Insetting directly addresses the complex web of a travel company's impact, from the farms that supply its food to the fuels that power its transport and the communities it interacts with. While challenges like data collection and initial investment remain, the benefits – enhanced sustainability, supply chain resilience, positive local impacts, and stronger brand credibility – make it a crucial strategy for the future.

As travelers become more discerning about the environmental and social impact of their choices, supporting businesses that prioritize insetting means contributing to a travel industry that is actively working to heal and regenerate the very places and resources it depends upon. The future of sustainable travel lies in these integrated, value-chain-focused approaches, where environmental responsibility is woven into the fabric of the business itself.