Visitor travel emissions

As a ‘Major Player’ under the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009, we have a duty to act as an exemplar and contribute to climate change mitigation and adaptation, and to act sustainably.

This leading role is further established in the national strategy for the historic environment, Our Past, Our Future, which outlines the sector’s commitment to reduce emissions in the historic environment, including those of tourism. 

As the lead public body for the historic environment and the largest operator of paid-for visitor attractions in Scotland, we launched our Responsible Tourism Framework in 2023. The framework outlines aspirations on enabling and promoting low carbon visitor experiences, which includes visitor travel.

We look after a mixture of paid entry and free entry sites, often in rural locations with poor public and active transport links. Nonetheless, we are working towards encouraging responsible tourism, engaging with communities around sites on creating opportunities related to visitor markets, and enabling visitors to access heritage in the most sustainable way. 

We commissioned a consultant to increase our organisation’s understanding of visitor travel emissions. Findings will contribute towards a better understanding of our organisation’s visitor travel emissions, as well as a methodology for monitoring and measuring visitor travel emissions to prioritise actions to reduce our organisational emissions. 

This work is part of a bigger collaborative project involving heritage organisations across Scotland and the UK to develop appropriate methodologies to measure visitor travel emissions.  

The long-term vision is to create a joined up and consistent approach to understanding visitor travel emissions, in order to support responsible tourism.