Flight shame and carbon offsetting: actions for individuals seeking a hopeful future

Some call it ‘flight shame’, others ‘the Greta Thunberg effect’, but there is undoubtedly an increasing consciousness about the environmental effect of personal carbon emissions. The recent furore about delegates flying to the Davos summit showed that it’s playing on people’s conscience, and lately countries including Germany and Sweden have reported a drop in flight passengers and a rise in rail travel. Individuals are realising their impact on the environment and word is spreading of ways to offset carbon emissions.

Maja Rosén, 38, is the founder of the campaign We Stay On The Ground, an initiative hoping to attract 100,000 people to pledge to a flight-free 2020. The campaign started in 2018 in Sweden, but has now launched in 10 more countries including the UK and USA. “I’ve noticed, for most people, it takes somebody to encourage them to actually make the pledge,” Rosén says. “It’s not enough to see it on social media, you need somebody to actually tell you to do it.”

Although they didn’t reach 100,000 pledges for 2019, they have reached 25,000 commitments for 2020 and Rosén is staying positive. She attests that people feel good about making the decision to quit flying: “Before, it feels like it’s going to be just sacrifice,” she says. “But after, people say they even enjoy traveling more because they realise that it’s so much more fun to take the train; you meet many more people, you see more of the country that you’re visiting and the journeys become part of the adventure.”

Rosén herself hasn’t flown for over a decade. “[Back then] I felt I was the only person on the planet who understood this, and I almost felt crazy because everyone around me was acting as if it wasn’t a climate crisis.” She is more positive about the reaction in the last couple of years, but isn’t keen to use the label ‘flight shame’, or the original Swedish term ‘flygskam’. “I don’t think that’s what we’re trying to do. We’re trying to make people understand that they actually have the power to make a difference by choosing not to fly, because it’s such an important way to not only decrease your own emissions, but also it has such a big impact on those around you.”

Laura Winstanley, 32, is a British expat living in Barcelona who endeavours not to fly whenever possible. After the festive period, Winstanley, a teacher, took the train back to Barcelona; a 10-hour trip from London with a change in Paris on the way. “I had the time to do it, so I thought I should,” she says. “It’s a lot less carbon if you take the train, which was my main motivation.”

Fully aware of her impact on the environment, Winstanley admits to feeling ‘flight shame’, saying: “I do feel ashamed because I know my carbon footprint is really big. I’ve also reduced eating meat for the same reasons, now we only eat vegetarian at home.” She and her husband elect to take their holidays in places near enough to catch the train. When she had to visit South Africa for her PhD she considered going by boat – but the 31-day travel time prohibited this.

Whenever Winstanley has to fly, she uses airlines’ offsetting programmes. Most carriers today have a check-box option for an extra fee to offset your carbon, but as Winstanley notes: “I don’t know exactly what they do with that money.”

One organisation that offers ways to offset and is transparent about where the money goes is Climate Stewards. Their online carbon calculator allows you to input travel details and tells you how much to pay to offset the trip. You then have the choice to send your contribution to projects including biosand water filters in Uganda, smokeless metal stoves in Nepal, or tree planting in several other countries.

“In the last year our income from offsetting has doubled, and we have seen more ‘buzz’ online about offsetting,” says Adrian Frost, a spokesperson for Climate Stewards. “Our tagline is ‘Reduce what you can, offset the rest’. We believe the best thing people can do is reduce their consumption. Once you’ve reduced what you can then offsetting is, we believe, a viable way to reflect your concerns about climate change and do something positive to help mitigate its effects.”

While governments and corporations continue to dither about taking large-scale measures to reduce pollution, the onus is with the individual. As Rosén affirms: “The more people wake up and understand what needs to be done, the quicker we will get the political solution that we need.”