Eco Friendly Carbon Neutral Tours in Porto

Edit 2024: We produce on average 15 Tonnes of carbon a year. this year we decided to offset 10 fold our emissoins.

From the beginning, we here always concerned to have the least impact in the environment, especially using classic sidecars.

Pursuing the goal of carbon-neutral tours led us, at Porto Sidecar Tours, to join the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

Certified Emission Reductions (CERs)

Let’s start with a quick explanation of how the process works:

“The greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduced through offsetting are measured in UN Certified Emission Reductions (CERs). The CERs are generated from Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) projects.

These projects, which are located in developing countries, earn 1 CER for each metric tonne of GHG emissions they reduce or avoid and are measured in CO₂ equivalent (CO₂-eq). The CERs can then be bought by people and organizations to offset their own emissions.” – UNFCCC site.

Carbon Neutral Tours in Porto

Our next step was to try and measure the emissions that our tours produce.

Firstly we tried to reduce back-office work (booking management; communication; marketing) to electronic devices avoiding paper usage.

Secondly, account for all fossil fuels and derivatives used on the sidecars ( gasoline, engine oil, cleaning products, the bottle of water provided to guests, etc.).

Thirdly, because we couldn’t account for the CO2 emitted producing the sidecar itself, we decided to double the amount found on points 1 and 2.

Finally, with the help of the UNFCCC emissions simulator, we estimated the emissions of our back office, our 2 guides driving 2 sidecars, for an average of 2 tours x 260 business days in a year. We do not do 260 tours as we only work by previous appointment.

We also used the longest tour with the highest number of kilometers. This was already overestimated due to the fact that we work less in Winter than in Summer and, not all tours use 2 sidecars.

In our Tailored Experiences with different vehicles, we calculate and offset the emissions specifically for each experience, and issue the guests their own CER’s.

Then we took that emissions value and doubled it. We came to a total of 13.2 tons of CO2 and we offset 14 CER, or the equivalent to 14 tonnes of CO2.