Knowledge series
Carbon Literacy: The basics that stick
Carbon literacy for tourism — understanding carbon footprints, emission sources and why measurement matters.
Insights & learning
Environmental intelligence you can actually use.
Carbon accounting can get technical quickly. Environmental performance doesn't need to be incomprehensible.
Explore practical explanations, learning sessions, useful numbers and insights from ETC Africa's work across tourism.
- 01CarbonThe measured number.
- 02ContextHow it compares to relevant peers.
- 03UnderstandingWhat the variance is telling you.
- 04Better decisionsWhere to act first.
One idea worth knowing
A carbon footprint without context is just a number.
Measurement tells you where you are. Comparison helps tell you what it means.
The number
18.4
kgCO₂e / guest bed night
The obvious question
Is that good?
Relevant peer benchmark
Your property18.4 kgCO₂e / GBN
Relevant peer benchmark24.7 kgCO₂e / GBN
26% below benchmark
Explore Benchmarking Now we know something.
Illustrative values, shown as an example only.
Watch & learn
Practical learning for tourism people.
Short, practical sessions exploring carbon, environmental performance, evidence and sustainability communication in tourism.
Knowledge series
CSI Carbon: Every Number Leaves a Trail, Improving Carbon Data Quality
Data quality and evidence — why the strongest environmental claim starts with knowing where the number came from.
Future Knowledge Series topics
The low-carbon kitchen
Food, energy, waste and practical environmental opportunities in tourism kitchens.
Telling your climate story
Communicating environmental performance without exaggeration or greenwash.
Verified Impact Knowledge Series. Further sessions will be added here as they are published.
Plain English
Carbon, without the bullshit.
Carbon accounting comes with an impressive collection of acronyms, units and terminology. Here's what some of it actually means.
What the hell is CO₂e?
Different greenhouse gases warm the atmosphere by different amounts. CO₂e — carbon dioxide equivalent — converts their climate impact into one common unit so they can be added together and compared.
Think of it as the common currency of greenhouse gas accounting.
Scope 1, 2 & 3 — without the headache
Scope 1
Emissions you create directly — for example diesel burned in generators or company vehicles.
Scope 2
Emissions associated with purchased energy, most commonly electricity.
Scope 3
Other indirect emissions connected to the organisation — such as flights, waste, purchased goods, freight and other activities depending on the inventory boundary.
Three buckets. Lots of spreadsheets.
What's an emission factor?
You usually don't measure greenhouse gases coming directly out of every exhaust pipe. Instead, an emission factor converts something you can measure — litres of diesel, kWh of electricity or kilometres flown — into estimated greenhouse gas emissions.
Activity data Emission factor CO₂e
Why per guest bed night?
A lodge with 20 guests should normally use fewer resources than the same lodge with 60 guests. Intensity metrics help account for operational scale.
Total CO₂e Guest bed nights Carbon intensity
This allows more meaningful comparison between properties and across years.
Total emissions tell one story. Intensity tells another.
What's a benchmark?
A benchmark gives a number context. Knowing your lodge emits 18 kgCO₂e per guest bed night is useful. Knowing comparable lodges typically emit 25 kg tells you considerably more.
Measurement gives you a number. Benchmarking gives it meaning.
Can carbon data really be “verified”?
Carbon calculations depend on underlying evidence. Invoices, financial records, utility bills, fuel records and operational data help establish where the numbers came from. Some categories will be stronger than others.
That is why ETC Africa considers data confidence alongside environmental performance.
Better evidence = more confidence in the answer.
Useful numbers
Numbers worth knowing.
A few numbers that help make carbon and environmental performance less abstract.
1 litre of diesel
≈ X.XX kgCO₂eCombustion emissions.
1 litre of petrol
≈ X.XX kgCO₂eCombustion emissions.
1 kWh South African grid electricity
≈ X.XX kgCO₂eGrid emissions factor.
Guest bed night
1 guest × 1 nightA useful tourism intensity denominator.
Carbon intensity
kgCO₂e / GBNOne of ETC Africa's core tourism performance metrics.
Benchmark median
50th percentileHalf the relevant peer group performs above it and half below it.
Emission factors vary by geography, year, methodology and calculation boundary. ETC Africa uses appropriate recognised factors for each inventory.
A number isn't always an answer
Sometimes the interesting bit is why the number changed.
Environmental data becomes intelligence when you start asking why.
See What We DoDiesel
↑ 46%20257.4 L / GBN
202610.8 L / GBN
What happened?
- More generator use?
- Lower occupancy?
- More game-drive activity?
- Operational change?
- Better data?
- Incorrect records?
Illustrative example values.
ETC tourism intelligence
What we're learning from the numbers.
As ETC Africa's anonymised benchmarking dataset grows, selected high-level findings will be shared here to help build a clearer picture of environmental performance across African tourism.
Carbon performance
Data insight coming soon
How does carbon intensity vary across different tourism operating models?
Energy
Data insight coming soon
What can renewable-energy contribution tell us about tourism carbon performance?
Operational performance
Data insight coming soon
Where do diesel, LPG, water and waste reveal unusual operational patterns?
Something about carbon making your brain hurt?
You're probably not the only one wondering. Send us the question and we may unpack it in a future Carbon, Without the Bullshit explainer.
Keep learning. Keep questioning the numbers.
Better environmental performance starts with understanding what the data can — and cannot — tell us.