‘Carbon offsets are not credible’: the travel boss exposing the truth about the industry’s sustainability

Darrell Wade told the Abta travel industry convention that some firms were ‘actively hostile’ to low-carbon policies. Photograph: Arif Gardner

Having dodged corporate jobs to find a way to keep travelling, Darrell Wade was, as he tells it, pretty pleased with life as his business took off. But the climate crisis wasn’t yet on his radar.

The Australian entrepreneur was on holiday in Botswana in 2005, fresh from winning an award for responsible travel, when he read The Weather Makers – a book by scientist Tim Flannery spelling out the causes and consequences of global heating. “I was feeling chuffed, and then I read that book. And I thought, holy shit, we’re a disaster – we’re doing the wrong thing.”