How to Communicate Carbon Offsets to Clients

As public awareness of climate change continues to increase, many consumers are looking for easy ways to help mitigate their own environmental impact. For travelers, buying carbon offsets is one of the easiest ways to do this. Last week, Travel Market Report provided a quick overview of what carbon offsets are and how they work. Here, we offer tips on how to communicate carbon offsets to your clients.

Keep It Positive
When raising the subject of carbon offsets with clients, the last thing advisors want to do is focus on the negative.

“Travel is a wonderful thing and we don’t want anybody to get the idea that we have to eliminate travel from our lives,” Nick Aster, marketing director, North America for South Pole told Travel Market Report. “The benefits of travel, the personal growth, the cultural connections, losing that would never be worth it.”

Instead of focusing on the damaging effects of carbon emissions, Aster recommended that advisors focus on the wide-ranging benefits of the carbon projects.

“Projects have other impacts besides carbon,” he said. “Many of these projects that are restoring ecosystems in a place like South Africa are also creating animal habitats.”

Others create jobs, make daily life healthier for people, or bring educational opportunities to local children.

“You really are giving back, not just offsetting this intangible vapor in the air. You are contributing.”

When a carbon project is located in the destination that people are visiting, it becomes even more meaningful.

“When you can tie an offset to a project that is associated with that geography or something about that destination, people are a lot more excited to participate in it,” Aster said.

While most projects are currently located in Africa, Asia and South America, more will be coming to the Caribbean, United States, and even in parts of Europe over the next several years.

“Especially in the Caribbean, you’re going to be seeing a lot more of what is called ‘blue carbon,’ which has to do with mangrove restoration, coral reef restoration, that kind of thing,” he added.

Make It Easy
There’s a reason charities have partnered with retail stores to “round up” for charity. It’s easy. Most people are willing to be charitable or help out the environment when it’s simple to do.

To help clients with their decision of purchase carbon offsets, the best thing you can do is make it easy, Aster said.

For clients with high-ticket purchases, Aster recommended advisors make a carbon offset purchase on their behalf.

But not all clients are high-ticket travelers. Nor do all travel advisors want to spend $50 to $100 of their commission purchasing carbon offsets for their clients.

One simple solution is to put a check box on their invoice with the statement, “I want to make my flights carbon neutral” with an approximate range of what the cost would be. If they check the box, their advisor makes the purchase using the client’s credit card and has the receipt sent to them.

Another option is after the booking is, when sending confirmation emails or any what-to-know info, to include a one-sheeter with basic facts about carbon offsets. Advisors can even pre-prick a project or two to highlight in order to show the full impact carbon offsets can have, along with a clickable link for clients to purchase the offsets themselves.