This week, in an industry-first, TTC Tour Brands—the collection of tour brands from The Travel Corporation, including Trafalgar, Contiki, Luxury Gold, Insight Vacations, Brendan Vacations and Costsaver—announced it is bidding farewell to all branded merchandise. Taking another step towards net zero goals, TTC Tour Brands will instead repurpose global funds to projects that fight climate change on behalf of its guests, trade partners and internal team members.
With a four-step climate action plan already in place, which includes near-term, long-term and net zero carbon emissions targets validated by the Science-based Targets Initiative (SBTi), TTC Tour Brands continues to put its mission to “Make Travel Matter” at the forefront. After assessing the unnecessary carbon emissions emitted by the business, it discovered that by saying no to “more stuff” it could prevent the equivalent carbon emissions of 6.5 million car-driven miles from entering the atmosphere annually.
Starting immediately, the portfolio commits to no longer order branded merchandise for gifting, with more brands across The Travel Corporation to follow. In its place, TTC Tour Brands will repurpose the funds traditionally allocated to branded merchandise and introduce donations to nature-based solutions projects that will remove a further 1.5 million car-driven miles worth of carbon emissions from the atmosphere by December 2024.
“Learning how much carbon emissions are created from our branded ‘stuff’ was an eye-opener for us. While we all love to represent our favorite travel brand with fun swag from t-shirts to tote bags, we know we can do more by using those resources to donate to sustainable projects we’re passionate about,” says Melissa DaSilva, president of TTC Tour Brands, North America. “It’s our responsibility to fully commit to practices that leave a positive impact on the places we visit and the people we meet along the way.”
TTC Tour Brands will donate to projects that are already supported by is not-for profit foundation TreadRight: GreenWave’s Kelp Climate Fund Project and Rainforest Rescue’s Daintree Project. Both nature-based solutions, these projects are initiatives that work for and with nature to address issues facing the environment, society and biodiversity. Donations to the Kelp Climate Fund Project will pay for the planting of kelp across regenerative ocean farms in North America. Kelp provides a powerful and scalable carbon drawdown solution that both captures and stores carbon as well as supports economies and global food systems. Donations to the Daintree Project will protect and restore parts of Australia’s Daintree Rainforest (the world’s longest continually evolving rainforest). This will preserve biodiversity and remove carbon from the atmosphere through planting, maintenance and restoration programs executed in partnership with the traditional landowners, the Eastern Kuku Yalanji people.
With the latest reports emerging from COP 28 indicating that insufficient progress has been made toward arresting the speed of climate change, TTC Tour Brands’ guests, trade partners and team members can feel good about the positive impact they will now make every time a donation is made on their behalf. The brands’ "no more stuff" commitment, collectively works toward keeping global warming below 1.5°C by mid-century.
As a final step, all TTC Tour Brand offices will re-home any leftover or outdated merchandise either to local charities, who can best re-use the items or utilize for internal fundraisers where proceeds will provide further donation support to their nature-based solutions partners.
Emissions calculations were done via www.epa.gov/greenhouse-gas-equivalencies-calculator To learn more, visit impact.ttc.com/climate/donations.
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