Cactus Language Blog

Eco thoughts - Cactus and CO2 offsetting

Posted by richard under Cactus Staff Opinion

We’re aware as a company that we’re effectively sending lots of people away each year on language courses abroad. This is great culturally and developmentally, but it generally means that people are taking flights too, which has implications for CO2 emissions.

Within our offices here in Brighton, we do whatever we can to minimise our waste. We recycle waste paper, card, plastic, tin cans, tetra packs, printer hardware and take it in turns to take home paper towels, tea bags, coffee grounds and fruit and food waste, to be composted in our respective homes. We also give staff an extra day’s holiday if they travel to a foreign destination other than by flying, and take up of this offer is good.

But how to work towards offsetting our clients’ behaviour as well as our own. We could subscribe to an offsetting service, such as Climate Care, who do a great job, but this approach has also been criticised as not really helping to discourage the behaviour of air travellers, but almost justifying further travel as the environmental effect has been “paid for” and can be forgotten.

We are therefore spending time working at offering alternative solutions to our travelling clients, and if you have any ideas, then please let us know. Travelling to a destination overland, though sometimes more time consuming, can be a great way of getting to know the country better, starting your holiday from the moment you get on that train, into the car, etc. and avoiding a lot of the frenetic stress of airports.

More about Cactus’ Green Policy