Good morning, everyone and welcome to Fáilte Ireland's Driving Action on Climate Change in Tourism Businesses Conference.
Thank you to Minister Martin for opening today's event and for your words of encouragement and support.
We are grateful to you and to your officials for your ongoing engagement as we support the tourism sector in this critical climate action journey.
The video you just watched has given you a brief snapshot of some of the work Fáilte Ireland is already doing in the sustainable development space, from environmental assessment on the Wild Atlantic Way to enhanced sustainability in our capital investments.
We are on our own climate action journey, and we want to support you on yours.
Today, we want to help you to understand some of the issues and opportunities for you at an operational level, and to help guide and support you as you endeavour to make progress on your businesses' sustainability journey, whether you are just taking your first steps or looking to build on substantial progress you have already made to drive even more impactful change in your business.
Climate change impacts us all, as individuals and as businesses, and we have a responsibility to ourselves, our planet and to the next generation to take decisive action to play our part in tackling this critical issue. As was highlighted time and time again at last week's COP27 conference, we all need to take urgent action now - as has been said when it comes to climate action "Winning slowly is the same as losing". And while it may seem that individual tourism businesses will have little impact on this huge global challenge... that couldn't be more wrong.
The combined impact of lots of small changes in lots of small businesses can and will make a material difference. Our collective action can and will be powerful, impactful and drive meaningful change - both for our industry's future, and for Ireland's climate targets.
There are many tourism and hospitality businesses around the country already making great strides in their climate action journeys.
After today, we want you to walk away from this conference feeling empowered to progress your own climate action plan - we have selected today's line up of speakers in the hope that they will inspire and inform you with real world examples of how taking climate action has positively impacted their businesses.
Before we commence with today's excellent line up of industry experts and thought leaders, I would like to first give you a brief overview of Fáilte Ireland's approach on climate action.
For over a decade, Fáilte Ireland has used the internationally recognised VICE Model for Sustainable Tourism
This focuses on the interaction between Visitors (V), the Industry (I) that serves them, the Community that hosts them (C) and the impact on the Environment (E).
Our approach aligns with the UN's World Travel Organisation's definition of sustainable tourism as "Tourism that takes full account of its current and future economic, social and environmental impacts, addressing the needs of visitors, the industry, the environment and host communities".
It reflects the organic relationship Fáilte Ireland envisages between our tourism industry partners, the communities where we work and the natural and built environment which makes the Irish tourism product so unique.
When we look at the four elements of this VICE model going forward, we need to focus even more on the C & the E, the community and the environment over the next 10 years.
Minister Martin referred to the Sustainable Tourism Working Group in her opening address, and this group - which Fáilte Ireland is a member of - has an important role to play in steering our industry towards reaching our shared ambition -- to place Ireland amongst the world leaders in sustainable tourism practices.
This sustainability is at the heart of the Fáilte Ireland Mission and Vision.
Our mission is to drive the recovery of the sector in order to maximise the sustainable economic, environmental, cultural and social contribution of tourism to Ireland.
Our vision is a tourism industry that is making an even bigger and more sustainable contribution to Ireland's economy, environment, society and culture than it did in 2019.
To drive towards this, we focus on 8 strategic pillars and as you can see Driving Climate Action is one of these key focus pillars Within this Driving Climate Action Pillar, we are focusing on five key areas
Driving Change through Knowledge and Metrics: Using an internationally recognised carbon reporting framework, we will benchmark the performance of Irish tourism.
Included in the Climate Toolkit for Businesses is a very useful carbon calculator that has been developed by Department of Enterprise Trade and Employment, which we will be introducing you to a little later on today.
Regardless of what stage your business is at on this journey, this calculator can help you make and monitor progress.
Driving measurable, tangible change starts at the level of each individual business. Today, we are launching our Climate Action Roadmap. This roadmap highlights the steps a business can take on their Carbon reduction journey and includes a suite of practical Capability Supports to help in reducing costs and making changes in areas like Energy, Food Waste and Water.
Consumer Insights on Climate Action will give the latest consumer sentiment on sustainability as a driver for business, activation of these insights will give businesses a marketing advantage.
Our Regional Development team, in conjunction with Local Authorities and other partners, are working with destinations across the country to benchmark their sustainability performance.
They will take steps to progress them on their sustainability journey through the four Regional Tourism Strategies, which are currently undergoing final environmental assessment.
These regional strategies provide a 10-year vision and a five-year action plan, identify what needs to be done to unlock the commercial potential of each region, while protecting the environment, enhancing the lives of local communities and serving the needs and expectations of our visitors. These will be the blueprint for sustainable tourism development.
In addition, our Commercial Development team will work with each regional convention bureau to improve their Global Destination Sustainability index scores.
Taking action on climate change requires collaboration and joined-up thinking between Government Departments and State Agencies.
We are working closely with colleagues in our own Department, Department of Transport, Waterways Ireland, the OPW, NPWS and local authorities around the country to implement initiatives in a number of areas.
Earlier this year Fáilte Ireland commissioned a feasibility study on the requirements for e-car touring entitled "Preparing Irish Tourism for Growth in Electric Vehicle Usage".
This report has been shared with the Department of Transport and informed the National EV Charging Strategy.
A feasibility study is currently at tender stage on the Future Development and Greening of the Cruise Hire Sector, which is a really important piece of work for Ireland's Hidden Heartlands in partnership with Waterways Ireland.
Finally, there is growing consumer demand for good sustainable practices in tourism businesses. We are currently undertaking an analysis of sustainable certification opportunities for businesses.
A recommended framework which will allow our marketing and commercial development teams to create new sales and marketing opportunities for sustainable tourism businesses.
In the second half of 2023, we will have a dedicated marketing budget of €500,000 to support and promote businesses that are on their climate action journey. This will help drive consumer visibility for those businesses who are making a real change.
Collaboration is the key to success as we tackle climate change as an industry. We have our partners from SEAI, EPA, Irish Water and SBC here today, ready to answer your questions on water, sustainable energy, environmental protection, and the energy efficiency loan scheme.
Today's speakers and panellists will share their learnings and insights on their success stories from their own sustainability journeys.
Then, Caeman Wall, Head of Economic Analysis will take you through the Climate Toolkit for Business which includes a user-friendly carbon calculator and our Director of Sector Development Jenny deSaulles will introduce you to our new Climate Action Roadmap and Guides for Tourism Businesses.
We hope you will leave here today with the tools and supports that you need to make real and tangible changes that will reduce your carbon footprint.
Taking proactive steps towards developing a truly sustainable tourism offering, will lead to revenue growth through increased consumer appeal, it will lead to cost reduction through less waste in food, water and energy.
It will also lead to financing opportunities through green investment funding.
And of course we can create destination branding opportunities through leveraging our green, nature-based offering to create a credible and compelling competitive advantage for Ireland.
Like all sectors of the economy, tourism must play its part in helping Ireland hit its climate action targets. Doing this will require significant changes to all aspects of the tourism economy and requires effort and willingness to embrace this change from everyone involved in our industry.
The Irish tourism industry is incredible at coming together and creating change - this industry has shown leadership in building Ireland's global reputation and image, this industry led Ireland out of the high un-employment levels after the financial crisis, this industry showed huge determination in supporting and delivering public health measures that saved lives during covid and this industry led one of the fastest post covid recoveries in the world.
It is time for us to come together and lead again. The leadership this industry shows on Climate action will not only help Ireland to deliver its climate change targets, it can set an example that will inspire other sectors in Ireland, and other tourism economies around the world.
This is the most important global issue and the fact that you are here today says to me that you want to join us and say not only will we not be found wanting on this issue, but we will be standard bearers of best practise.
Thank you.