It’s easy to ignore the negative impact tourism can have on holiday destinations across the world, but we shouldn’t. Have you ever considered the environmental problems caused by the extra litter, the increased pollution, and the risks to the wildlife?

Here at the Coop Travel blog, we discussed how you can make a positive impact on the environment through ABTA’s Make Holidays Greener campaign. The annual event encourages anyone enjoying a holiday this year to pledge to go green while you’re away. It doesn’t have to be hard: each pledge is a small, simple way that you can help your destination through social or environmental action.

Let’s find out how the annual Make Holidays Greener campaign can make a difference, and help ensure that our favourite destinations are preserved for generations to come.

Pledge 1: No to plastic

It doesn’t matter if your pledge is small – it will still make a difference. This first pledge means that while you are away you’ll promise to avoid using plastic straws for your drinks, you’ll refuse to use disposable plastic bags, and you’ll drink from a reusable plastic bottle during your holiday, rather than buying disposable ones.

Every little helps!

Pledge 2: Look for the Travelife logo

Travelife is a certification scheme helping accommodations across the globe to become more sustainable.

When you pledge to stay in an accommodation with the Travelife logo, you can have confidence that the company you are staying with makes an effort to manage the social and environmental impacts their business has. This includes improving energy and water consumption and ensuring that they support local culture, businesses, and people.

You can find a list of Travelife hotels here.

Pledge 3: Reduce, re-use, recycle

When you’re away, it’s tempting to let yourself be a little careless – after all, you’re on holiday, so why shouldn’t you treat yourself?

With this kind of thinking it’s easy to put undue pressure onto a resort, and one small part of this is forgetting to recycle or throwing your rubbish away into the wrong place.

However, you can pledge to throw your rubbish away into the appropriate facilities – not the street, and not the bin if it can be recycled. The simplest things can help, such as removing the packaging around toiletries before you leave home.

Pledge 4: Holiday clean-up

This one’s straightforward, and the benefits are obvious: you’ll pledge to organise an activity such as a beach or park clean-up, or you’ll join one organised by your travel provider and help to keep your holiday destination beautiful and litter-free.

Pledge 5: Protect biodiversity

The environment is a fragile thing and can be negatively impacted in so many ways, so that’s why you should pledge to protect the local biodiversity while you’re away.

Check ingredients in your sun screen and avoid the ingredient oxybenzone, which damages coral reef and marine ecology. You will also avoid buying animal-sourced artifacts like shells, corals, and sponges.

Make YOUR holiday greener

Making a pledge will not only benefit the environment, but also benefit you in a more immediate way! For every pledge you make, you will have a separate, unique entry into a prize draw in which you could win a GoPro.

Join us for our next green-themed blog, where we’ll look at 5 more ways you can pledge to make your holiday greener.