Product Carbon Footprinting in the Tourism Industry

Since about 40 percent of the overall emissions are caused by consumers and already 81 percent of all consumers would prefer low carbon products if they had the choice, it would be a desirable goal to increase the demand for climate friendly products in addition to regulatory requirements or emission trading systems. One product whereat it would be definite reasonable to choose it by means of carbon content is the hotel stay. Tourism is one of the sectors causing the most emissions with a contribution to the climate change of about five percent. Although this sector does not have a sufficient strategy of reducing its emission, the PCF offers the potential to initiate a development towards a low carbon tourism. However, there is no common standard of carbon assessment and labeling, which is indispensable for the assessment of a carbon footprint. Especially the ‘Product Carbon Footprint’ (PCF) lacks unity and standardization, even though it draws much attention. Despite of the difficulties, in recent years many campaigns have developed and pushed the topic. In doing so the carbon footprint has been characterised by a few different organizations like the World Resources Institute (WRI) supported by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), the British Ministry of the Environment (DEFRA) or the non – profit organization Carbon Trust, whose only common feature is that they are based on the ISO standards series 14040 ff. The two most common methods are the Greenhouse Gas Inventory (WRI/ WBCSD) and the Public Available Specification (PAS) 2050 (DEFRA), which differ because the inventory creates the carbon footprint of a company and the PAS creates a product carbon footprint. Although they consist of similar basic elements. Nevertheless, in the service sector like tourism these approaches interact because the company is the product in almost the same manner. Therefore, the research will deal with the definition of basics and the question of how to combine the different methodological backgrounds in order to develop a consistent standard in service, especially for tourism. In this topic the main issues are the setting of a sufficient scope and appropriate boundaries, which are not even clarified for the standards.