S2 Ep25: Susanne Etti and the reality of a carbon footprint

In our latest Back to the F**kture podcast, Dr Susanne Etti talks carbon labelling and more collaborative and constructive ways to tackle the climate crisis through her role and work with sustainable travel group, Intrepid.  

Dr Susanne Etti and I hit it off straight away. For one, she lives in Melbourne – my favourite maritime city and skinny white provider, no challengers – and for two, she pulls no punches when it comes to reminding the travel sector just how much it has contributed to the current climate crisis. 

 No issues there, except that Susanne, a biologist, and one of the BBC 100 Women (think Michelle Obama and global climate leader, Christiana Figueres) and one of National Georgraphic’s Travellers of the Year, works for Intrepid, a light foot, small group adventure travel business, and carries the title of global environmental impact manager. Both of these things make you hyper- aware that her observations about the sector come with much thought, careful knowledge, and a scientist’s understanding that to comprehend how and why we should change things, we need to truly appreciate what will happen, if we don’t. And Susanne, as you’ll discover in my latest Back to the F**kture podcast is pretty clear about the latter.  

Climate boiling, instead of global warming. Wildfires, instead of campfires. Submerged coral reefs instead of above sea-water coral islands,. carbon passports instead of travel permits, trips that chase the shade, rather than follow the sun, climate refugees outnumbering economic migrants, and… Well that’s just it, the ‘and’ can be even more devastating, or it can be a turning point we can all contribute to, she tells me, especially if we begin to measure our carbon footprint, as travellers, agencies, hoteliers and corporations – and proactively take steps to reduce it.