Has travel & tourism talked itself into complacency or will it step up & collaborate to secure its future?

The travel industry loves to talk about care: care for guests, care for experience, care for local people. If it truly cared, it would be going toe-to-toe with the climate crisis to protect the destinations it depends on. Instead, most are still watching from the sidelines waiting for others to lead the charge.

The common thread

The travel and tourism industry stands at a critical crossroads. Our emissions continue to rise, and extreme weather events are becoming more frequent and more destructive. As an interconnected system spanning aviation, cruise, rail, road, and accommodation, we are only as strong as our weakest link.

Transport is at the heart of this system — yet it cannot decarbonise alone. Every part of the value chain that depends on transport, from destinations and hotels to tour operators and investors, shares a responsibility to help drive this transition. If we fail to support the transport sector in reducing its emissions, the impacts will reverberate across the entire network. When one part of the system falters, the whole industry ecosystem is at risk.

Regarding hospitality, it doesn’t just simply sit within the global travel system: it powers it. Every flight, transfer, and booking ultimately connects back to a place to rest, and that means every accommodation provider should also be helping to steer the industry’s journey towards decarbonisation. With tourism projected to contribute $16 trillion to global GDP and reach 30 billion trips by 2034, that growth could be a triumph, or a tragedy.

Too many hotels are still hooked on superficial gestures like swapping plastic straws for paper, and patting themselves on the back for their towel initiatives that are mostly never implemented. It’s 2025, not 2005, and the sector still hasn’t grasped the scale of the problem it’s a part of. We all know that climate change is not a distant threat - it’s a current and escalating business risk, driving increased regulatory scrutiny, higher operational costs, and mounting infrastructure challenges.

The solutions exist and the future could not be more stark, so why on earth is the industry still dragging its feet while the planet, and its own business model, unravels?

Winning, or changing the game?

ZEERO won an award last week at the “A World For Travel” conference in Paris. We really are grateful to have been recognised, but validation isn’t why we founded ZEERO and it's not what drives us.

We were born from inside the industry, having confronted what others are still wilfully ignoring: data and just calculating emissions doesn’t mean action, and ‘net zero by 2050’ means nothing if nobody acts now. Through endless pledges and word-salad reports pretending to be progress, has travel and tourism talked itself into complacency.

The sticking point isn’t a lack of will, instead we theorise it in detachment and fragmentation. Many travel businesses are still disengaged by the sheer scale of the challenge; failing to feel they’ll make a dent (aka, ‘it’s somebody else’s problem’), or see real solutions as inaccessible or cost prohibitive. Those that are motivated, act in isolation through small in-house initiatives or funding projects in silos that barely scratch the surface.

It was obvious to us that the travel industry needed something, and we knew it wasn’t another campaign or call to action.

It needed to be tangible with frontline impact; to be reciprocal with benefits across both economic and environmental pillars, accessible spatially and financially to stakeholders of all sizes and in all corners of the world.

It’s taken us five years to get here but we’ve created a breakthrough, circular solution; a systems-level disruptor.

A line-in-the-sand moment

Our now award-winning solution is a waste-to-value system addressing two critical global challenges: waste and emissions reduction through a technology called Hydrothermal Liquefaction (HTL). This process converts biomass: sewage, food and agricultural waste into biofuels that are a minimum of 81% lower in emissions than fossil fuels. Besides being able to be used as ‘drop in’ fuels for aviation, marine, rail and road vehicles, the fuels can also be used to power generators for electricity.

Our HTL solution offers a massive opportunity to turn a multitude of challenges - mass tourism, waste management, urban growth - into a valuable resource that has, up until now, been largely unconsidered. It can also help to secure energy independence for hotels and local communities in the face of ever-changing geopolitics.

Increased flash floods and heavy rainfall due to climate change are also overwhelming wastewater works, with sewage increasingly ending up in rivers and coastal waters. This is hazardous for both the natural ecosystems in the rivers and coastal waters and this in turn brings huge health risks for communities and visitors.

Our HTL model is proof that circular systems are within reach. Hotels and destinations could host modular HTL units at wastewater plants, transforming waste into fuel, unlocking by-products like PFAS free crop fertilizers for agriculture, and cutting pollution at the source. The benefits cascade: cleaner rivers, healthier communities, safer beaches, resilient ecosystems, and reduced emissions across the travel value chain.

Shared responsibility = shared reward

Our HTL biofuels are financed through a blended funding model that brings together municipalities, local partners, climate contributions from the tourism sector, and fuel offtake agreements with airlines, cruise and coach operators. This approach creates a steady, circular stream of investment flowing directly into waste-to-fuel projects, where it can make the most difference.

In other words, it’s not another grant, or a once-a-year donation. It’s a Public–Private Partnership (PPP) model designed to last: hotels and destinations benefit from cleaner waste systems and renewable energy, operators gain access to low-carbon fuel, and the entire industry shares in the rewards of a circular economy. This is how circularity looks in practice - not as a buzzword, but as a financial mechanism that sustains itself.

If we’re serious about decarbonising travel, then funding the transition has to become everyone’s business. That’s why we’re rallying the industry behind a simple idea with transformative potential: adding a small, voluntary climate contribution to every booking. Even from $1 to $3 per guest, it has almighty benefits.

ETOA, the European Tourism Association, has already stepped up as the first official contributor to this initiative, pledging to dedicate funds raised through its meetings and events to support our sustainable fuel projects. Their leadership sends a clear message to the wider industry: change doesn’t begin with billion-dollar budgets - it begins with shared responsibility.

Imagine if every hotel, operator, cruise line, and OTA added a small climate contribution per booking. The aggregated impact would be enormous, and would stream a continuous flow of climate capital funding the development of HTL plants; creating jobs, supporting local waste infrastructure, and accelerating the transition away from fossil fuels.

This is so far from the comfortable token gestures; it’s systemic. A model that enables the industry to clean up its own waste, generate its own fuel, and power its own transition. To unlock the industry’s full potential, what’s required is a genuine culture of collaboration, supported by a robust investment strategy and targeted regulation. Through this model, responsibility and reward is shared, and the industry can move beyond rhetoric to achieve meaningful, lasting climate action.

Step up or fall down

Solutions are here and the technology is proven, but what’s missing, still, is the courage to ‘do’. If travel and tourism won’t step up now, when the world needs it most, what does that say about an industry built on caring for people and places?

Join us today, let's team up to scale up, email us on : assistance@zeero-group.com   

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