Letter to this New World

To this new world.

This is to the elected leaders who have the ambition to go down in history as courageous, responsible, forward thinking, innovative, brave and visionary. Those that want to be featured in the books, which future school children will read - about the pivotal moment in mankind’s history where these leaders got together to change the devastating course humanity was on to destroy its own planet.

Please remember this: nature is our ally, our friend, our shoulder to cry on, she is there to sustain us, to comfort us, to ground us, to heal us and to give us happiness. If she were a person, would you kill her?

Our new world needs bold ambitions and actions, but above all it needs people who are willing to roll up their sleeves and work really hard, work together and work consistently at making the necessary changes we ALL need to make to keep 1.5C alive!

I went to my first climate talk in 1989 and was alarmed by what I heard, but confident that politicians were being given the same information and would surely do something about these worrisome developments. I was not as brave as today’s youth are and did not hit the streets in protest - I wish I had.

So when my business partner and I founded our company in 2012 with a vision to help our sector, the hospitality industry, in becoming more sustainable, we thought we were already too late. But we were still seen as disruptors, in a minority both because of our vision and our gender, having to knock down barriers and overcome hurdles at every turning.

But we persevered, because in our minds there is no other option. With many years of very hard work, no salaries but a strong conviction of having to save this planet to keep us going. We pushed, we cajoled, we built our company to become a BCorp, with a team of passionate sustainability experts striving to lead our industry to a sustainable future.

I expect nothing less of our elected leaders: to work extremely hard, to make personal sacrifices, to collaborate with others who are not your natural allies, to embrace innovation even when they cause you discomfort, to be problem solvers even when you are tired and to rise to this noble task. There is simply no other option, there is no Planet B. Especially not, if you want to be able to look into the eyes of your grandchildren and not see those filled with scorn, disappointment, and hatred for their stolen future.

As a specialist sustainability consultancy for hospitality and tourism, Considerate Group is proud to be a signatory of the Glasgow Declaration, officially launched at COP26. We strongly support the Declaration’s objectives aiming at strengthening climate ambition and action within the tourism industry.