Last week at FITUR in Madrid the tourism sector took another step to tackle plastic pollution by launching the Global Tourism Plastics Initiative, developed by the One Planet Sustainable Tourism Programme and Considerate Group is delighted to take an active role in the Advisory Council of this initiative.
The Global Tourism Plastics Initiative (GTPI) unites the tourism sector behind a common vision to address the root causes of plastic pollution. It enables businesses and governments to take concerted action, leading by example in the shift towards a circularity in the use of plastics.
As a member of the Advisory Committee, Considerate Group is contributing to the co-creation of the initiative, developing a menu of commitments that outlines the expected contributions from enterprises, destinations, associations, and NGO’s to define concrete roadmaps for implementation of the initiative by 2025.
Developed by the Sustainable Tourism Programme of the One Planet network, a multi-stakeholder partnership to implement SDG 12 on Sustainable Consumption and Production, the Global Tourism Plastics Initiative is led by the UNEP– United Nations Environment Programme and the UNWTO– World Tourism Organisation, in collaboration with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation.
The Global Tourism Plastics Initiative acts as the tourism sector interface of the New Plastics Economy Global Commitment, which unites more than 450 businesses, governments, and other organisations behind a common vision and targets to address plastic waste and pollution at its source.
“Plastic pollution is one of the major environmental challenges of our time, and tourism has an important role to play in contributing to the solution,” said UN Environment Programme Economy Division Director, Ligia Noronha. “Through the Global Tourism Plastics Initiative, front-running tourism companies and destinations will set quantifiable targets and are supported to innovate, eliminate and circulate the way they use plastics, to help achieve circularity in the use of plastics and reduce plastics pollution globally.”
To realise this vision, tourism companies destinations commit to eliminate the plastic items they don’t need; innovate so all plastics they do need are designed to be safely reused, recycled, or composted; and circulate everything they use to keep it in the economy and out of the environment.
The Global Tourism Plastics Initiative requires tourism organisations to make a set of concrete and actionable commitments by 2025:
Eliminate problematic or unnecessary plastic packaging and items.
Take action to move from single-use to reuse models or reusable alternatives.
Engage the value chain to move towards 100% of plastic packaging to be reusable, recyclable, or compostable.
Take action to increase the amount of recycled content across all plastic packaging and items used.
Commit to collaborate and invest to increase the recycling and composting rates for plastics.
Report publicly and annually on progress made towards these targets.
By taking serious action in a coordinated and determined manner on plastic pollution, the tourism sector can help preserve and protect the places and wildlife that make destinations worth visiting.
