AST Climate Action Plan

On November 12th, the UN Climate Change Summit (COP26) in Glasgow ended with a clear consensus that the world needs to do much more to limit global warming to 1.5°C by 2050 and avert a climate crisis.

The Glasgow Declaration is a tool for the travel industry that we are supporting to set the guidelines for our climate action plan.

Accessible Spain Travel signed the Glasgow Declaration on Climate Action in Tourism launched by the UN World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) in November. As a signatory, we are committed to supporting this global effort to combat climate change and to implementing an action plan within twelve months, following the recommended pathways.

We have raised the temperature to 1.2 degrees on the planet compared to pre-industrial levels (1850-1900). Many areas in the world are suffering severe droughts and there are very strong meteorological phenomena, such as increasingly frequent strong heat waves or heavy rains after months of drought. We are committed to becoming a travel agency that promotes more sustainable travel by generating less carbon emissions.

We are working so that all our suppliers collaborate in this mission so that our services become as soon as possible a sustainable supply chain in each one of the points of your trip.

AST CLIMATE ACTION PLAN 2023

Collaborate

Integrate climate change adaptation and mitigation considerations into business strategies
Promote domestic and intra-regional tourism to reduce emissions, in particular from transport
Collaborate with the tourism value chain to implement innovative business models to improve circularity
Provide accurate and non-misleading information, including for advertising and marketing purposes, on climate impact of tourism, greenhouse gas emissions and carbon offset activities to allow consumers to make informed decisions
Promote diversified tourist attractions and products as alternatives to identified vulnerable destinations

Measure

Identify the value chain emission impact to account for and act on emissions reduction and avoidance activities upstream (suppliers) and downstream (customer/visitors) throughout the value chain

Reduce

Reduce greenhouse gas emissions and other atmospheric pollutants from tourism value chain operations
Increase the use of renewable energy

Regenerate

Eliminate activities in the tourism value chain contributing to destruction of natural habitats
Regenerate ecological integrity of tourism supply chains by ensuring sustainable sourcing and procurement practices

The One Planet Sustainable Tourism Programme has the overall objective to enhance the sustainable development impacts of the tourism sector by 2030, by developing, promoting and scaling up sustainable consumption and production practices that boost the efficient use of natural resources while producing less waste and addressing the challenges of climate change, loss of biodiversity and pollution. The Sustainable Tourism Programme is part of the One Planet network, a multi-stakeholder partnership to implement SDG 12 on Sustainable Consumption and Production.

As the declaration states: “A just transition to Net Zero before 2050 will only be possible if tourism’s recovery accelerates the adoption of sustainable consumption and production, and redefines our future success to consider not only economic value but rather the regeneration of ecosystems, biodiversity and communities.”

Tourban Sustainable Urban Tourism Acceleration Programme

As part of our Climate Action Plan, we decided to apply to join Tourban which is an EU-funded project that supports urban tourism SMEs in becoming more competitive and more sustainable – not only from an environmental but also from an economic and social point of view. The Tourban Programme aims to address the multiple effects and impacts arising from urban tourism such as:

The need to increase health precautions
Greater pressure on limited urban resources such as water, energy and space
Waste management
Gentrification and coexistence between residents and visitors
Precarious working conditions in the hospitality and catering industry

The Tourban Sustainable Urban Tourism Acceleration Programme has provided us skills, capacity, and financial resources to develop an innovative project around a more sustainable approach of our Tours operations in urban destinations. At AST we believe that universal design and full inclusion makes a destination really sustainable. Within our Sustainable Destination strategy, we have developed a pilot project including 10 sustainable travel experiences within Barcelona city and surrounding areas.

The creation of these products are focused on collaborating with our partners and suppliers in order to:

Promote domestic and intraregional travel with specific campaigns
Promoting diversified destinations and experiences to improve the coexistence between residents and visitors in concentrated areas of Barcelona
Assure the needs of everyone are accounted for on the sustainable experiences we are providing, adapting these services and removing all possible barriers, through auditing, training and collaboration.
Assure our website complies with Web Accessibility Standards WCAG 2.0 Level AA in order to reduce technological barriers when accessing information about our products, and which sets us on the path to reach AAA for the highest possible conformance level. Learn more here.

Within this process we have developed guidelines to identify which of our Tours follow sustainable practices. These are included with the AST ECO TOURS Programme and can be recognized with its tag on our products.