Carbon Offsetting through Midoco Midoffice

Offsetting travel services has been simplified for travel agencies through the connection of atmosfair to MIDOCO Midoffice

If we took today's political statements for granted then the pandemic has been declared over. Regardless, Coronavirus is here to stay. It is added to the myriad of other severe and seasonal diseases which as mankind, we are learning to cope and live with as we do with all challenges we face. This is a strength of us as human beings.

Alongside this adjustment is the return of normality, and as such travel has found its way back into people's annual plans this year. Yes, the recent geo-political developments will have their impact, but how much remains to be seen. 

From a sustainability perspective, whilst in 2020 the lower travel volumes during the pandemic reduced greenhouse gas emissions in the UK by 20 % (transport sector) compared to 2019*,   it is still good that we are travelling again! Travel connects cultures, promotes coexistence on our planet and is an important economic factor and livelihood for many destinations which fell away sharply during the pandemic. The task at hand now is to rebuild and maintain travel and tourism whilst respecting sustainability. 

It is widely accepted that travel emissions have contributed to the climate crisis. As such, all stakeholders are responsible for finding solutions in the travel industry's value chain. One pillar in designing  a more sustainable travel industry is the currently established transitional solution of offsetting travel services by travellers. Until recently, this has forced travel agencies to establish separate and often clumsy processes to fulfil. However, these requirements are now becoming more and more integrated into the day-to-day processes of travel agencies. This raised visibility also makes it easier for all involved to participate in climate protection with the help of offsetting. Efficiency of these post-sales processes is therefore essential to ensure the scalability of sustainable travel services in the first place.

With MIDOCO Midoffice, travel agencies can now initiate compensation with atmosfair via the software and assign it to the order and the service. You can calculate the compensation according to the travel service or define individual values. In summary, the connection to atmosfair enables: 

• Complete or partial compensation of the booked services of an order. For example, if the traveller only wants to offset the flight, the calculation can be made without the hotel (or vice versa).
• Automatic calculation currency/kg CO2.
• Specification of a desired amount of CO2 in EUR.
• Sending a confirmation and a certificate for the climate protection contribution to the e-mail address stored in MIDOCO Midoffice.
• Adjustment/forwarding of the information contained in the personal data area to atmosfair for payment processing for a direct debit.
• The possibility to additionally offset services added at a later date.
• Offset individual services or package tours as a whole.
• Create reports on the compensation of trips.

The integration of the possibility to offset booked trips via MIDOCO is only one part of MIDOCO's efforts to contribute to the climate-friendliness of travel in the ecosystem of the travel industry. As a software provider, we have also set the goal of making our business activities more climate-friendly. This includes, for example, offsetting our business trips and running our server landscape with electricity from renewable sources. We have identified many areas where we can take action. You can find the list of our measures to improve sustainability in operations here.

*https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-9266/