Shades of green

Opodo’s stance on travel and the environment

At Opodo, we sell travel. We believe that seeing the world is one of the most inspiring, enjoyable and mind-broadening experiences in life.

At the same time, we’re aware that some of the travel products we sell may have an impact on the environment. It’s therefore our aim to inform customers about ways to reduce their 'carbon footprint' while travelling and to enable them to participate in reputable schemes that seek to address environmental issues, if they choose to do so.

We also believe that, as any business should, we have a responsibility to improve our internal operations to reduce our own impact on the environment.

What shade of green suits you?

We respect that how much or how little you wish to adopt green travel principles is your personal choice. We’ve therefore presented some of the options available to travellers on a 'shades of green spectrum', from small efficiency actions to financial donations to green causes.

Shades of green

Mint green

Your travel can be greener at very little cost and effort, simply by taking care of a few details before you go, and following the same energy-saving practices on your trip that you would at home. Examples include:

  • checking to ensure all appliances, TVs, stereos, DVD players and lights are switched off properly (at the wall) before leaving your home
  • if you’d like to leave a light on for security, using one with a low energy light bulb
  • if you’re going away in winter, leaving your heating timer on to protect your home but turn it down low to about 8ºC
  • not taking excessively heavy luggage on your trip
  • turning off air conditioning, appliances and lights in hotel rooms when going out
  • asking for your hotel towels to be washed every second day only

Emerald green

You can make your holiday greener by changing some aspects of your trip. Examples include:

  • taking Eurostar breaks rather than flying when travelling to French and Belgian cities from London
  • selecting more eco-friendly rental cars
  • taking short breaks in the UK, staying at UK hotels
  • booking a holiday centred on helping an environmental cause, such as conservation projects

Jungle green

By financially supporting green initiatives, you can ‘offset’ (compensate for) emissions from your own travel. There are diverse organisations working on renewable energy and carbon reduction projects around the world. Opodo has personally met with the following charities, which you might like to consider supporting:

  • Cool Earth – protects chunks of Amazonian rainforest earmarked for logging
  • Converging World – runs renewable energy projects in India and supports energy efficiency community projects in the UK
  • Pure – buys and cancels carbon credits from emission reduction projects meeting international standards

What we’re doing

At Opodo we believe we have a duty to conduct our commercial activities in an environmentally responsible way. We’re honest about how we rank in our own Shades of green scale (currently Mint) and are taking steps to improve our rating. So far, Opodo UK has conducted an internal audit of our office practices and as a result have:

  • extended and strengthened our policy of recycling office paper
  • introduced recycling bins for plastic and cans
  • encouraged staff to turn off PCs, printers and non-essential machinery at night
  • initiated an improved digital filing system
  • de-commissioned some fax machines

Naturally, we aim to achieve more over time – watch this space.