Game drive emissions
kgCO₂e / guest bed night
Your property7.4
Comparable off-grid safari lodges10.1
Illustrative ETC Africa benchmark comparison
Environmental performance for tourism
Know your impact.
See how you compare.
Know what to do next.
We help tourism businesses work out where they stand, how they compare, what needs attention and what to do next. We stay involved as the picture develops, helping you track progress, train your team and back up what you say with real evidence.
27% below benchmark
93tourism assessments
7African countries
400,000+guest bed nights analysed
25+ yearstourism & sustainability experience
Built for tourism Independent lodges · Hotels · Safari operators · Multi-property groups · Tourism portfolios
What we actually help with
From the numbers to what happens next.
A carbon footprint gives you a starting point. We help you understand what the numbers mean, what deserves attention and what to do next.
MEASURE
Know where you are.
Build a credible picture of your carbon and environmental performance using the information your business already has.
COMPARE
See how you compare.
Use relevant tourism benchmarks to understand what the numbers mean in context.
IMPROVE
Work out what matters.
Find unusual patterns, practical opportunities and the areas where effort or investment can make the biggest difference.
TRACK
See whether things are getting better.
Follow performance over time, improve the quality of the data and keep important actions moving.
TRAIN YOUR TEAM
Give your people useful skills.
ETC clients and Verified Impact participants get access to practical online learning designed for tourism teams — from guides and guest-facing staff through to operations, finance and reporting teams.
PROVE IT
Back up what you say.
Turn real performance data into credible information for management, guests, agents, tour operators and marketing teams.
Practical online learning is designed for different roles — from the people talking to guests to the people collecting and reporting the data, building more knowledge inside the business over time.
The first assessment gives us the baseline. From there, we help you follow what changes, investigate unusual results, improve the data and keep important actions moving.
A measurable foundation
Carbon measurement connects energy, fuel, travel, waste and operations into a useful picture of how the business is performing.
Everyone has a green story. Carbon gives you the evidence behind it.
Why context matters
Which lodge is performing better?
Two different tourism operations and two different footprints. The lower number does not automatically mean better performance.
Lodge A
Grid-connected · easily accessible · 24 beds
6.4 kgCO₂e / guest bed night
Energy sourceMains electricity
Supply logisticsShort, tarred
OccupancyHigh
Lodge B
Off-grid · remote · 12 beds
11.2 kgCO₂e / guest bed night
Energy sourceSolar + diesel back-up
Supply logistics400 km of gravel
OccupancySeasonal
The reveal
Answer: You cannot tell.
Lodge A has the lower carbon footprint. But that alone doesn't tell us which operation is performing better. Against comparable off-grid camps, Lodge B is a top-quartile performer. Against comparable grid-connected lodges, Lodge A is unremarkable.
The number tells you the footprint. The right comparison tells you what it means.That's where ETC Africa adds value. We give environmental data the context needed to become useful intelligence.Benchmarking
So, how do you compare?
See where your property sits alongside relevant tourism operations. Different businesses operate differently, so we compare like with like.
Carbon intensity — off-grid safari lodges
kgCO₂e / guest bed night
Peer rangeTypical peer range
Illustrative property9.4 kgCO₂e
Where would your property sit?
Lower intensity / top quartilePeer medianHigher intensity
Already have carbon data? We can help place it in the right tourism context. Starting from scratch? We can build the picture with you.
Talk to UsIllustrative distribution and values only. Not actual ETC Africa benchmark results.
Benchmarking
A carbon footprint without context is just a number.
The right comparison shows what is working, what deserves attention and where to investigate further.
Total carbon
Your property
14.6 kgCO₂e
22% below
Comparable properties18.7 kgCO₂e
Diesel
Your property
7.2 L
29% below
Comparable properties10.1 L
Renewable energy
Your property
68% renewable
Top quartile
Comparable properties44% renewable
Waste
Your property
0.48 kg
39% below
Comparable properties0.79 kg
Illustrative prototype values only. These figures do not represent actual ETC Africa benchmark results.
Operational intelligence
The numbers often reveal more than carbon.
We work with your team to investigate unusual consumption, record-keeping gaps, infrastructure performance and cost-saving opportunities. Sometimes the answer is an investment. Sometimes it is a process change. Sometimes the data itself needs fixing.
Operational inefficiencies
Data quality problems
Year-on-year anomalies
Investment priorities
LPG consumption
kg / guest bed night
Your property
4.8 kg
Comparable properties
1.9 kg
Worth investigating
Kitchen equipment, hot-water systems and purchasing records.
Potential opportunity
≈ R120,000 annual savingif consumption moved towards peer best practiceIllustrative comparison
ETC Tourism Intelligence
Building a clearer picture of environmental performance across African tourism.
A growing benchmarking dataset helps tourism businesses compare performance with relevant operational peers. The principle is simple: compare like with like.
93 tourism assessments · 400,000+ guest bed nights analysed · 1,000+ environmental datapoints
Property-level environmental assessments across multiple reporting periods.
RelevantOff-grid safari lodgeComparable off-grid safari lodges
Not relevantOff-grid safari lodgeUrban hotel
Emissions sources we can benchmark
01Carbon / guest bed night
02Diesel / guest bed night
03Electricity / guest bed night
04Renewable energy %
05Waste / guest bed night
06Water / guest bed night
Portfolio support
Your own properties can be your best benchmark.
For lodge and hotel groups, the most useful comparison is often inside the business itself. ETC helps groups compare properties on a like-for-like basis, identify internal best practice and focus management attention where it matters most.
The goal isn't to rank properties for the sake of it. It's to learn from what is working.
Explore Portfolio SupportQuestions your portfolio can answer
01Which properties use diesel most efficiently?
02Where is renewable energy working best?
03Which camps have solved a problem others are still battling with?
04Where does unusual performance deserve a closer look?
Credible communication
Sustainability claims need something behind them.
Tourism businesses are being asked more often to show the evidence behind environmental claims — by guests, agents, tour operators, investors and regulators. European consumer rules are also moving firmly in this direction. From September 2026, new EU rules restrict vague claims such as “green” or “environmentally friendly” where they cannot be demonstrated.
If you say it, be able to show it.
ETC helps tourism businesses build the measurement, evidence and context behind credible environmental communication.
Learn About Verified ImpactRequirements differ between markets and businesses. ETC provides environmental measurement and evidence support rather than legal advice.
Verified Impact
From technical assessment to Verified Impact.
ETC Africa undertakes the technical measurement, assessment and benchmarking. Verified Impact turns that evidence into a clear annual picture of data quality, comparative performance and progress over time.
Verified Impact is a programme of the independent Eco Travel Foundation — which provides its public-interest home — while ETC Africa provides the technical assessment and benchmarking.
01
DATA QUALITY
Can we trust the picture?
02
BENCHMARK
How do we compare?
03
TRAJECTORY
Are we improving?
Evidence-led recognitionVERIFIED IMPACT
Start with evidence
You know what you're doing. Do you know how well it's working?
You don't need perfect data to start. We help make sense of what is already there, compare it with the right tourism operations and work with your team on what happens next.
Talk to UsVerified Impact is a programme of the Eco Travel Foundation, with technical assessment and benchmarking by ETC Africa.