I write, speak and advise on sustainable tourism, focussing primarily on our response to climate change.

For the past five years I have spent most of my time accelerating tourism’s response to the climate crisis. In 2020 I co-founded Tourism Declares a Climate Emergency, a grassroots initiative calling on tourism destinations and businesses to work together on equitable science-based climate action. The travel trade publication Skift said we were “leading the charge for the travel industry to commit to cutting their carbon emissions in half by 2030”. In 2021 we won Regenerative Travel’s Initiative of the Year.

In 2021, I was a co-author of the UN Tourism-led Glasgow Declaration for Climate Action in Tourism, which built on Tourism Declares’ climate action planning framework, and launched at COP26 in Glasgow. It is now the largest ever coalition in tourism to work on climate action, with over 850 signatories from countries and cities to companies big and small committing to work together on the biggest challenge we all face.

I continue to collaborate with UN Tourism to ensure the implementation of the declaration’s commitments. I have reviewed all 350+ Climate Action Plans published by Glasgow Declaration signatories to date to guide the writing of Glasgow Declaration Implementation Report 2023 – Advancing Climate Action, and the 2024 report, which will soon be published.

I work regularly with the Travel Foundation developing their Climate Action Programme for destinations and creating and collaborating on Climate Action Plans with many organisations - including Visit Finland, Visit Scotland and the European Travel Commission. I am currently working with the Organisation of Eastern Carribean States and the EU’s Sustainable Tourism Mission of the Interreg Euro-MED Programme.

My recent publications include An Introduction to Climate Justice and Tourism - a guide for Travel Businesses (2024), The Blueprint for Tourism Climate Action Plans. A Guide for Regional Authorities and Destination Management Organizations (2025) and Climate Action Planning Toolkit for Mediterranean Regional Authorities and DMOs (2024). I also wrote a new Sustainable Tourism Communication guide for VIsit England in 2024 (awaiting publication).

I speak regularly about climate action and sustainable tourism, delivering keynotes, webinars and workshops around Europe and online. I am a member of Travalyst’s Independent Advisory Group guiding the development of universal sustainability standards for tourism.

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I have written two books on sustainable tourism - one for trade and one for tourists. Transforming Travel - realising the potential of sustainable tourism was published in January 2019. Clean Breaks - 500 New Ways to See the World (co-written with Richard Hammond of Greentraveller) was published in 2009. it was the the first English language guidebook by a mainstream publisher dedicated to sustainable tourism. It won Planeta's guidebook of the year, and sold around 30,000 copies.

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From 2021-2024 I taught a course on sustainable tourism at Excelia University in la Rochelle. I have also lectured on sustainable tourism communication at Surrey University.

From 2013-2020 I wrote a fortnightly blog on responsible tourism for World Travel Market. I also co-founded (and used to edit) Travindy, the first travel industry news site to focus on the ideas, innovations and issues shaping a sustainable future for tourism.

From 2001-2007 I edited The Ecologist, at the time the world's longest running environmental magazine.