Trains, planes and automobiles?

In these climate-aware times, the thorny issue of how we go on holiday or travel for work has become the ultimate test of greenness. Then there are questions like which airline ships primates to vivisection laboratories, or which ferry's owners hire port facilities to the US Navy in Iraq? Sarah Irving tries to find an ethical way to travel.

This report considers passenger transport options for journeys of a few hundred miles. We look at the corporate ethics records of the bus, rail, ferry and airline companies that offer to get us from the UK to Paris, and from Scotland to the South of England — and back again. We also compare the climate change impacts of different ways of travelling over this kind of distance.

How we've rated the companies

In this report, we've treated transport providers in the same way as restaurants or retailers like supermarkets. We've asked them about their wider supply chains for any food they serve or goods they sell on board. While, for instance, train companies like Virgin, EMT and Eurostar have gone a fair way on serving Fairtrade tea and coffee, and some even sell organic meals, few of the airlines had woken up to this issue. Most of the airlines also picked up negative marks for in-flight duty free trolleys retailing animal-tested toiletries and cosmetics, as well as cigarettes and leather products. And almost all of the companies on the table sold meat likely to have come from factory farmed sources.

Short haul flights

In 2007 a series of rulings by the British Advertising Standards Authority proclaimed that Easyjet and Ryanair had been stretching the truth when they claimed that their budget flights were environmentally friendly ways to travel. The companies claimed that, as they used newer aircraft and carried more passengers per plane than other brands, this made them a better option.(1)

So were these claims simply heralding the death of satire, or did they have a point? Budget airlines have been vilified for their contributions to the rapid growth of aviation and of the resulting climate change emissions. As well as belching out CO2, aircraft pollution is especially hazardous to the climate because it's delivered straight up into the higher levels of the atmosphere, where it does more damage, and because planes also release large amounts of other greenhouse gases.(2) The kind of short-haul flights offered under brands such as Easyjet, Ryanair, Jet2 and Flybe are also, it is argued, more polluting because aeroplane emissions are highest when taking off and landing.

So how do other means of transport measure up?

Another recent transport scandal broke in early 2008 when a leaked UN report announced the scale of emissions from shipping. Although the report mainly examined the impacts of cargo shipping, and their massive growth because of the volume of consumer goods being freighted around the world from cheap manufacturing nations like China, it raised the issue of governmental complacency about sea travel, and of the pollution threatening busy waterways like the English Channel.(3)

And, as the table below shows, car drivers and train passengers cannot be complacent either. A small, energy-efficient car with several people on board or a slow-moving local train might lay claim to having low emissions per passenger per mile. But high-speed trains, while still preferable to aeroplanes in emissions terms, have a fairly hefty climate footprint, and a gas-guzzling SUV with a small family aboard can be as polluting as an air journey.

Source: Aviation Environmental Federation, www.aef.org.uk

CO2 emissions for return journeys to Europe (very approximate) (from "Carbon Counter" by Mark Lynas 2007)

Source: Eurolines/Edinburgh Centre for Carbon Management

Mass transport — transport for the masses?

If we're expecting people to change their travel habits, we need good quality, affordable public transport systems. A major survey undertaken for DEFRA in 2007 found that over half of drivers said they had tried to cut down on car use, but couldn't find practical alternatives. Of those taking short-haul flights, 58% did so because "it was quicker," 28% because it was cheaper and 27% because it was ?easier' than other forms of transport.(4)

Moving to more sustainable lifestyles demands improvements in public transport. The high prices of intercity rail tickets in the UK has been the subject of public anger and environmentalists' concern, and the fact that the few low-price tickets available are easiest to access via the internet means that they are most likely to be accessible to affluent people with online know-how and home computers, which further disenfranchises those on low incomes.

The positive impacts of putting cheap, quality public transport in place is also illustrated by the DEFRA survey, where over the same 10-year period, bus use in London, where the Mayor's office had imposed low rates and improved services, increased 25%, while bus use in the rest of the UK declined by 10%.(5)

If you're concerned about the price and quality of public transport, lobby your local council for bus improvements, or support the Campaign for Better Transport (formerly Transport 2000) ? see Links below for contact details. Passenger Focus, the national rail passenger watchdog, is at 08453 022 022 or info@passengerfocus.org.uk.

Multipliers and miles

Calculating the carbon emissions of different forms of transport is fraught with complexities. At first sight, the emissions for a single journey taken by different means can look similar, and airlines often argue that plane journeys are more direct than ground travel. But the impacts of plane travel need to include a multiplier for something called ?radiative forcing' ? the additional impacts of plane emissions resulting from the fact that they happen much higher up in the atmosphere. There's little agreement on what number the basic amount of emissions needs to be multiplied by to truly reflect the impact of flying, but most scientists put it at around 2.7, although some go as high as 4. The figures given from Mark Lynas' book above use a high multiplier. The Eurolines figures for one-way travel to the Alps for a skiing holiday show that even using a lower multiplier of 2 and taking into account the fact that plane journeys are often more direct, the impacts are double that of surface travel.

To Travel or Not to Travel?

According to Paddy Gillett, from anti-aviation campaign group Plane Stupid, "If we are going to stop climate change we're going to have to reconsider our lifestyles, and a big part of that is reconsidering our flying habits." Environmental groups like Plane Stupid and Greenpeace insist that the rapid growth in flights from the UK needs to be halted, and that the expansion of budget airline flights beyond Europe to distant destinations like East Asia and the USA heralds environmental disaster.

Gillett rejects claims that anti-flying campaigners are just middle-class killjoys: "Individuals earning under fifteen grand a year actually fly less now, as a group, if they fly at all, than they did in 2000, whereas richer people are flying more because they can structure their lives around cheap flights, for example by buying second homes abroad," he argues. "At supposedly budget airports like Stansted the average income of customers is often over ?50,000, which shows what a myth it is that environmentalists are just denying working-class people their hard-earned break."

The British tourist industry has also begged us to holiday closer to home, especially after economic blows like foot & mouth disease, and the decline of many of Britain's traditional seaside resorts.

Others argue that, if foreign tourism is managed sensitively, it can be a vital source of income for Majority world countries, attracting foreign currency and promoting development that's more sustainable than alternatives such as mining or forestry.

Responsibletravel.com's Krissy Pentland suggests that: "we should be looking to reduce our carbon footprint in everyday life and this means flying less. But we need to look at the whole picture, not just the flight. Tourists spend millions of pounds in developing countries every year, and while, of course, not all of that trickles into local people's hands, a lot of it does. Tourism is also one of the largest industries in the world, employing 1 in 8 people directly or indirectly and it's growing fastest in developing countries where poverty reduction is most needed. Unlike most sectors, tourism has no export tariffs and is based around the assets of local people - their culture and environments."

But even Responsibletravel's website now includes a section entitled "I do not want to fly," which features destinations easily accessible by train or boat.

In reality, the majority of overseas holidays are not the kind of ?eco-tourism' that sustainability campaigners argue for. In many countries, tourist developments have wrecked ecosystems, brought exploitative working conditions and offended local values and customs. Low-impact tourism can do harm by attracting the attention of big operators. Even monster resorts like Benidorm and Ibiza were once sleepy little villages, frequented by a privileged few who thought they were in on a secret.

Campaign group Tourism Concern, recognising that few people are actually ready to give up their foreign holidays, offers tips for travellers on how to find a more ethical holiday. Its ?Ethical Travel Guide' lists approved tour operators around the world.

But, Tourism Concern stresses, "it will be a while before you can purchase a holiday with a fair trade mark. There are no internationally recognised accrediting bodies." And it admits that there is no easy answer to the issue of climate change, especially if you're sceptical about the value of carbon offsetting schemes as we are at Ethical Consumer.

Travel beyond Paris

With the improvement of high speed rail links to destinations like Amsterdam and between Madrid and Barcelona, it's increasingly easy to get beyond the traditional Eurostar destinations without flying. A range of websites can offer advice and ticket booking for trains throughout Europe and into Asia, the Middle East and North Africa. See www.seat61.com, www.raileurope.com and www.noflights.com.

Trouble in paradise

According to Michelle Thew of the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection, "Every year, tens of thousands of non-human primates, many of whom have been trapped in the wild, are transported by airlines around the world for the international research industry. Packed in small crates, they travel as cargo on extremely long journeys where they may have to endure inadequate ventilation, noise and extreme temperature fluctuations." BUAV says that most of these animals are shipped on passenger aircraft, on journeys of up to three days. Unsurprisingly, many die on the way.

BUAV has been publicising the activities of this gruesome industry for over fifteen years, and, says Thew, "It is encouraging that so many airlines now refuse to be involved in this suffering after listening to the voice of the travelling public and representations by the BUAV."

Airlines which once transported thousands of monkeys and apes to miserable fates in vivisection laboratories now have policies forbidding this. Some, like BA, explicitly state that they will only transport live primates for conservation breeding programmes, while others (mainly the ?budget' airlines) don't carry live animals at all.

In fact, of the companies covered, only Air France still ships live primates for research, and remains a major player in this market. Other airlines which BUAV says still ship primates include El Al, Air China, Amerijet and Philippine Airlines. Michelle Thew stresses that "as consumers, we can all play an important role in encouraging airlines to change. The BUAV calls on readers of the Ethical Consumer Magazine to only fly with those airlines which don't transport primates destined for the research industry."

More information from www.buav.org

60 second green guide

• Leave the car at home. Unless it's a very low-carbon model, on-the- ground public transport is better, be it trains, coaches or ferries.
• Keep flights to an absolute minimum.
• Why are you travelling? Consider what the UK's cities and countryside have to offer.
• Don't forget to campaign for better public transport (see Links).

Links and further reading

• www.tourismconcern.org.uk — especially its ?FAQs for Tourists'
• www.bettertransport.org.uk — The Campaign for Better Transport
• www.foe.co.uk/campaigns/transport — the original environmental campaigners
• www.planestupid.com — "bringing the aviation industry back down to earth!"
• Carbon Offsets product report, Ethical Consumer issue 106, May/June 2007
• Interview with Seat61.com's Mark Smith, Ethical Consumer issue 109.
• The Ethical Travel Guide: your passport to alternative holidays. Polly Patullo/Orely Minelli.Published by Earthscan/Tourism Concern

References

1 www.asa.org.uk, viewed March 2008 2 Gossling et al 2007: "Voluntary carbon offsetting schemes for aviation ? efficiency, credibility and sustainable tourism. Journal of Sustainable Tourism 15,3 3 Guardian 13th February 2008: "True scale of CO2 emissions from shipping revealed 4 DEFRA, 2007 Headline statistical report on attitudes, behaviour and wellbeing 5 DEFRA, 2007 Headline statistical report on attitudes, behaviour and wellbeing 6 www.global-unions.org October 2006 7 www.statewatch.org April 2003 8 San Jose Mercury News 15/11/2007 9 Radio Free Asia www.rfa.org 17/1/2008 10 Multinational Monitor, September 2005 11 bbc.co.uk 23/8/2007 12 www.ert.be 2/2008 and www.tabd.com 12/2005 13 Independent 8/10/2007 14 www.flybmi.com 1/2008 15 Craven Herald & Pioneer 30/12/2003 16 www.jafza.ae 1/2008 17 www.iss-shipping.com 2/2008 18 www.serco.com 1/2006 19 bbc.co.uk 9/8/2006 20 www.elfaa.com 1/2008 21 RMT press release 12/12/2006 22 Sunday Herald 18/12/2007 23 www.eurotunnel.com, viewed 3/2008 24 www.worldshop.eu 1/2008 25 Hazards April 2005 26 Labour Research January 2004 27 ww.personneltoday.com 10/10/2005 28 Guardian 2/10/2007 29 Scotsman 31/1/2004 30 bbc.co.uk 17/10/2005 31 Hazards January 2006 32 SNCF Annual Report 2006 33 l'Humanite 10/2006 34 Nanotechnology: undersized, unregulated and already here. Corporate Watch 2007 35 Corporate Watch June 2005 36 Independent 8/10/2007 37 Labour Research August 2005 38 Hazards January 2006