It’s not any news that the world is a little bit off track when it comes to achieving its sustainability objectives. You can choose which ruler to use for measuring the progress towards them. Equality indexes, CO2 emissions, species growth/loss, you name it — the outcome is urgent for all of them. If we are to change this scenario, we have to rethink the future and redesign the way we live, consume and move around.

When it comes to exercising and applying sustainability principles in different sectors, mobility is (or at least should be) a priority. Around the world, different initiatives and social enterprises are already taking climate action very seriously. The tourism industry, for instance, is leading the way by placing CO2 neutral solutions and sustainable travel at the center of their strategy.

To raise awareness and inspire action, we have gathered 3 initiatives that are having a positive impact on the tourism industry and supporting the industry’s efforts to operate within planetary boundaries.

The Tourism Innovation Academy: Supporting early-stage tourism startups

Along with civil society, academia and other agents of change, social enterprises and public institutions have an important and disruptive role to play in accelerating the process towards global sustainability. In cooperation with Impact Hub Yerevan, the EU4Business “Innovative Tourism and Technology Development for Armenia” project is driving innovation in the tourism sector by supporting the Tourism Innovation Academy.

The Academy focuses on boosting early-stage tourism-related startups in their entrepreneurship journey. By nurturing these innovative businesses, the initiative aims to support them to become scalable, profitable, sustainable, purpose-driven and impactful enterprises. How? By equipping them with relevant skills, knowledge, access to networks and increasing their capabilities to compete in national and global markets. The latest edition of the Academy is in progress and you can stay up to date by following them on social media.

Reto País: Bridging sectors to empower innovative ideas in Costa Rica

Implemented by Impact Hub San José, Reto PAÍS — which stands for Premio A la Innovación Social (Award for Social Innovation) — is a Costa-Rica based program and national competition that promotes and leverages innovative ideas addressing the county’s pressing social and environmental issues.

Powered by “the strength of unity and the hope of a country”, Reto PAÍS is an effort between Costa-Rican private and public entities, which has already carved 52 partnerships between diverse institutions and impacted more than 450 people in its past three editions.

Among other areas, this year’s initiative is focused on supporting impact-makers and strengthening new solutions that lie in the intersection between tourism and Costa-Rican socio-environmental issues. The program is currently in its fourth cohort and applications for 2022’s edition are open until February 22 2022, for all nationals, from any age range.

Goodwings: Sustainable travel made simple

Another impressive initiative that has been under Impact Hub’s radar for a while is Goodwings, a CO2-removing hotel booking platform on a mission to turn 1 billion trips into Net Zero by 2030. How? By booking hotels through their platform, your total travel emissions — from transportation to accommodation to food, responsible for nearly 10% of the world’s carbon footprint — are calculated and verifiably removed.

Going Net Zero refers to “the balance between the amount of greenhouse gasses emitted by human activity and the amount removed from the atmosphere through mitigating actions”, says Goodwings. “We reach Net Zero when the amount we emit is no more than the amount removed”. By acting directly upon one of the main contributors to climate change, this startup is making sustainable travel more simple, accessible and feasible.

Impact Hub + Goodwings!

At Impact Hub, we are committed to changing the status-quo and co-lead the way not only by reimagining, but also by building better business, systems, economic models and, more importantly, a better future. One that allows humans to thrive in a more just and sustainable world.

We want to channel the power of our locally rooted, globally connected community to contribute to a regenerative economy — focusing on supporting entrepreneurs working on sustainable food & agriculture, circular and net-zero solutions to scale their impact, faster.

As part of our Global Environmental Strategy — which, in a nutshell, aims to make sure that all our programs, events, spaces and activities become as sustainable as possible — we are collaborating with key stakeholders to tackle the climate emergency. 

Following up on that commitment, we have partnered up with Goodwings to better understand, reduce and remove our network’s travel-related carbon emissions, at scale.

Goodwings is the only travel platform that calculates, reports and pays to remove its clients’ travel emissions — and now offers Impact Hub members and employees discounts on subscription-based memberships.

Would you like to join our community and benefit from the opportunities this partnership offers? Become an Impact Hub global member for free to get access to Goodwings discounts and travel Net Zero by getting your CO2 travel emissions removed easily and cost-free every time you book a hotel on their site!

For more details on what Impact Hub is doing to address key environmental issues as a global network, read our interview with Anne Merkle, our Environmental Lead. For our latest stories about climate action, sustainable entrepreneurship and innovation, head to our Impact Blog.