With prices for conventional carbon offsets (e.g. offsets that fund forest conservation projects or the creation of new forests) rising, many businesses are trying out new approaches to sharing the costs of climate programs with their supply partners and customers.
Online travel platform Kimkim has taken an approach that shares the cost of its climate initiative with its local travel specialists and customers. When kimkim travelers book their trip, a ten dollar contribution to Tomorrow’s Air is automatically added to the trip price, multiplied by the number of travelers in their group. Kimkim and the local travel specialist then match each traveler’s contribution with another ten dollars. As the company notes on its website, “each contribution is small - but cumulatively, they have a large and lasting impact.”
Kimkim is one example of a travel business picking up on advice offered by leading organizations such as the World Wildlife Fund and BCG which encourages companies to financially support a portfolio of “high-impact” actions: “Some of these actions might generate quantifiable emission reductions or remove carbon from the atmosphere, while others might unlock the pipeline of future climate solutions. These solutions could include nature-based solutions, new emissions capture technologies, and even business innovation and transformation efforts that can further society’s move toward a net-zero economy,” Beyond Science-based Targets: A Blueprint for Corporate Action on Climate and Nature.
Kimkim Head of Destination Development Eric Chamberlain commented, “At kimkim, we’re passionate about the positive social and economic impacts that travel generates in our destinations—but we also recognize that travel contributes to climate change. Our partnership with Tomorrow’s Air helps us magnify our impact through the permanent removal and storage of carbon dioxide and climate-conscious travel education. We’re excited to be part of a global community helping to scale up new technologies that will be necessary alongside natural solutions for carbon removal.”
The time has never been better to embrace new solutions to help restore our climate: the latest IPCC report’s findings state clearly that the world isn’t reducing greenhouse-gas emissions fast enough.
This is pushing us to the point of irreversible consequences from melting glaciers and permafrost for example and the extinction of 14 percent of land species, among a long list of other impacts. Early customers like kimkim are helping accelerate important carbon removal solutions down the cost curve, while also building knowledge and awareness with a global community of travelers.