Overcoming information asymmetry in tourism carbon management: The application of a new reporting architecture to Aotearoa New Zealand

Abstract

Responding to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and Paris Climate commitments are urgent priorities facing many governments. Meeting these commitments will require new industry management architectures that align measures of progress (economic, environmental, human and social) with government structures, datasets, and reporting. Comprehensive emissions quantification and reduction targets for tourism must be a part of this new architecture. In this paper we propose a comprehensive Tourism Carbon Information System (TCIS), comprising four essential information components: national tourism carbon footprint, the carbon-economic linkage, drivers and decarbonization progress, and benchmarking. The TCIS is then tested and applied to Aotearoa New Zealand (2007–2013) to track tourism carbon performance and its decarbonization speed, compared to the national average across sectors. This critical information sheds light on future growth in tourism relative to the national greenhouse gas inventory and establishes the required mitigation trajectory for destinations to move onto a sustainable emissions pathway.

A Review of the Economic, Social and Environmental Impacts of Tourism Development

“…Early work showed that between 7% and 8% of documented greenhouse gas emissions in France were from tourists' transport [43]. In New Zealand the use of private vehicles for tourism purposes account for 3.4 Mt in carbon emissions [11]. There are other sectors in the tourism industry other than the transportation sector that contribute to carbon emission.…”

“…These impacts include the change of local cultures, rise in prostitution and crime rate and the pollution of ecological sensitive sites and over use of water resources [10]. For example, tourism contributed to 4.4 million tonnes (Mt) in direct carbon emissions and 5.8 Mt in total domestic emissions in New Zealand [11]. The negative impacts of tourism development reflect the fact that tourism economic benefits cannot be fully maximized unless its social and environment dimensions are given thoughtful consideration [8].…”

Sustainable tourism policies in Peru and their link with renewable energy: analysis in the main museums of the Moche route

“…In the environmental field it generates more emissions of greenhouse gases, increasing the carbon footprint ( Sun and Drakeman, 2020 ). A study carried out by WTO and UN reveals that tourism contributes 5% of all CO 2 produced by man ( OMT-a, 2019 ), and between 50 and 60% of carbon emissions are indirectly related to this industry ( Dwyer et al., 2010 ) with a strong growth rate (3% per year), hoping that tourism emissions will increasingly contribute to the carbon budget of global economy between 2020 and 2060 ( Sun and Higham, 2021 ). This has become a concern, due to its impact on environmental pollution and the higher level of demand for fossil fuels and energy intensity ( Katircioglu, 2014 ).…”

“…In 2009, an ambitious tourism reduction target was proposed, with the aim of reducing emissions of this sector from 25% to 30% by 2020 and to 50% by 2035 from the base year 2005. Despite this ambitious vision, very few countries have identified cohesive mitigation strategies related to tourism and even fewer have implemented such policies ( Sun and Higham, 2021 ). That is why the need for responsible growth of the sector is defended through sustainable tourism development, since the growing environmental pressure urges the world to create strategies to cushion this problem from different sectors.…”

“…It is necessary to bear in mind that, after the crisis generated by the COVID-19 pandemic, we have to project and restructure our form of tourism management in the different destinations, directing and reorienting it under the parameters of sustainability ( Bertella, 2020 ), to balance tourism income (Sustainable Development Goal N° 8 ″Decent Work and Economic Growth") and its impact on climate change (Sustainable Development Goal N° 13 ″Climate Action") ( Sun and Higham, 2021 ). Today, tourism has a central place in global development policies, and can still achieve greater political recognition and have an effective impact on the 2030 Agenda and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals ( OMT-b, 2019 ).…”