I am the Registrar of the Climate Friendly Travel(CFT) Registry that is managed by SUNx Malta.  Last month, on World Tourism Day, we launched 50 national Climate Friendly Travel (CFT) chapters, and during the ceremony at the Headquarters of the Malta Tourism Authority, I gave an introduction to the CFT Registry.  This post is based on my presentation at the chapter launch.

The CFT Registry is the gateway to the Climate Friendly Travel community, and by listing a company on the CFT Registry they agree with the principles of Climate Friendly Travel.  This implies that the management of the company supports low carbon tourism that is nature friendly and helping to keep our planet’s warming below 1.5 degrees.

Once a company is registered, they will receive the CFT badge, which can be used for publicity and recognition, and they will appear on the map of the Registry.

the Climate Friendly Travel badge

When we launched the CFT Registry a couple of years ago, in partnership with the Malta Tourism Authority and with support from the World Travel and Tourism Council and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, we thought that we would enlist some of the large global hotel chains and cruise liners.  Our experience has been very different.

It turns out that our focus is on family-owned, private smaller enterprises, and we found that our support is most wanted in the poorer countries, especially in the global South.  This is why we have made a recent pledge to focus on the Least Developed Countries, and we are inviting more and more hotels, resorts and tour operators from countries in Africa and Asia.  The launch of the CFT chapters on World Tourism Day is part of this global drive.

 

The Pavilions Himalayas hotel in Nepal is one of our most recent registrations

Yet, although we are currently focusing our efforts on the LDCs and Small Island Development States, we are creating a global community and we have registrations from everywhere in the world, including Malta.  I am very pleased to stress that we have two small hotels in Valletta, an adventure company and a think tank in Gozo and a Maltese marine experience listed, and we are extremely proud that the Malta Tourism Authority is the first Government tourism agency on the Registry.  I expect that after this launch event today, we will get more interest from hotels and resorts in Malta and Gozo.

Gozo Adventures is a CFT company that offers an active and eco-friendly way to explore the islands of Gozo and Comino in Malta, including kayaking.

The CFT registry is a website, and it has a map of all listed companies.  At present we have more than 300 entries on the map, and we are growing steadily.  For example, a few months ago, we received more than 50 registrations of eco-hotels from Ecoplore in India, and I was talking with the Cresta hotel chain in Zimbabwe last week about listing their hotels in southern Africa individually.  We have all Azalai Hotels in West Africa on the map and the complete Cayuga Collection in Central America.  Most recently, all the lodges of Green Safaris in Zambia joined us, including the Tongabezi Lodge, where they have just launched an electric dhow on the Zambezi River.

The electric dhow on the Zambezi River

We expect that the launch of the national Chapters today will markedly accelerate this expansion.  One of the specific tasks of the Chapter leaders will be to reach out to hospitality enterprises in the country, and invite them to register.  This type of contact at local level, and communication in the national language, will create a swell of interest, and I am looking forward to accept tens if not hundreds of new registrations in the months to come.   Our Chapter in Uganda is already very active, and we have more than 30 different Ugandan companies listed on the Registry, including the Wagtail Forest Lodge in Bwindi; a small hotel that provides access to the Mountain Gorilla highlands of south western Uganda.

Wagtail Forest Lodge in Uganda

Once a company joins us, and registers its operations, we ask them to enter their climate action plan on line.  If the company does not yet have a serious plan for sustainability and climate action, we will help them to create such a plan.

Our support teams in the University of Toronto, Canada and in Australia have developed guidance to help tourism enterprises, and we also have a wealth of curated information on the Registry website, that has been collected during the past few years.  In this electronic toolbox, listed companies can find strategic information about global, regional or national plans and programmes, they can access innovations from other companies around the world, they can listen to videos and presentations about climate action and sustainability, and they can search for technical support from consultants and strategic partners.

One of the earlier registrations is Hotel Luise in Erlangen, Germany.  The hotel has been committed to environmental protection and sustainability since the early 1980s, and they have listed all the sustainability aspects of the hotel on a website, which is called the “Wall of Change”.

The “Wall of Change” in Luise Hotel

A group of technical partners have signed agreements under SDG17, and they can provide technical advice on a range of topics, from waste reduction to energy conservation, from planning walking trails to developing virtual reality experiences.   We have agreements with them to provide initial free support to companies on the CFT Registry, but there may be financial implications for more in-depth collaboration.  For example, food waste is a serious problem in the hospitality industry, and one of our partners runs The Pledge on Food Waste.  They can help restaurants and hotels to drastically reduce food waste, cut on cost, boost their image, and foster collaboration with complimentary food waste solution providers.

Discarded food in a dumpster in Stockholm.  Photo by Sigurdas on Wikimedia

We also provide opportunities to share information, and we have discovered that many hotels already have activities to reduce their carbon footprint and to support conservation activities and community action.  Small hotels are often working closely with their local communities, and we have exciting examples of joint vegetable production, renewable energy sharing, glass waste collection for manufacturing of handicrafts, and more.  Water consumption is key challenge, especially in coastal areas, and there are some great examples of water conservation in our registered enterprises.

For example, the individual bungalows at Chumbe in Zanzibar, Tanzania use filtered rainwater for showers and hand basins.

Chumbe Island Lodge, ZanzibarThe Registry calls for companies to file their sustainability plans and reports, and when a company has proved that it is serious, and that it has a plan of action, we will provide another badge that illustrates these extra efforts.  Visitors to the Registry website will be able to access this information by clicking on the relevant point on the map of the Registry.  SUNx Malta does not verify that the plans are of a certain standard, and we make it clear that individual travelers will have to make up their own mind about the level of efforts that a hotel or tour operator has made.

The badge that signifies a plan has been uploaded on the CFT Registry

There are many other ways in which we will provide channels for communication and publicity of these plans and actions.  We have started a series of two-weekly podcasts to share information, and we include interviews with General Managers, Managing Directors or Founders of listed companies in our monthly e-bulletin eXist.  We have an active presence on social media like Facebook, Instagram and X, and we manage a SUNx Malta institutional page and a Climate Friendly Travel group on LinkedIn.  The SUNx page has 1150 followers and the LinkedIn CFT group currently has nearly 1300 members.  In addition, we have links with partners that work in media and publicity, including the World Tourism Network and the Good Tourism Blog.

We regularly share information from registered companies, especially innovative developments, like the electric safari vehicles that CFT member Emboo River Lodge in Kenya is using for their trips in the Masai Mara in Kenya.

The electric safari vehicle: https://www.emboo.camp/first-electric-safari-vehicles.

Finally, I must mention that the CFT Registry is linked to the UN Global Climate Action Portal, as SUNx Malta is recognized as a Cooperative Initiative.  The GCAP is an online platform where actors from around the globe – countries, regions, cities, companies, investors and other organizations – can display their commitments to act on climate change.  The information from our Registry is uploaded to the UN portal whenever they review their database (the screenshot below does not show the latest information, as it has not yet been updated by GCAP).

To conclude, the CFT Registry is the backbone of the SUNx Malta programme and its activities.  Registered companies are key to the development of the national chapters, and the Chapters will generate more listed companies.  A Registry with more members will become more influential, and better known, and that will in turn attract new members.  I believe that our aim for 2030 to have 10,000 registered companies globally is a realistic target, and I look forward to working with our key partners in Malta to make sure that this includes a strong local contingent in Malta and Gozo.

A traditional fishing boat in Marsalforn, Gozo