Jun. 19, 2025
Hey team, and welcome back to one5c! Has anyone else had a bit of trouble focusing these last couple weeks? I confess I feel that way all the time, but things get especially dicey in June, as the question rings again and again: Y’all going away this summer? I know I’m far from alone in daydreaming about cannonballing off a dock, launching a kayak into a sleepy river, or sipping a margarita with my toes in the sand. So while we’re all in that headspace, we may as well talk about how to get in some R&R without wrecking the planet. Let’s get to planning, shall we? —Corinne
8 TIPS FOR TRAVELING SUSTAINABLY, RANKED
By Molly Glick, additional reporting by Audrey Chan
If you’re plotting a beach escape this sunny season, you’re not alone. This summer, more than half of Americans are expected to hit the road (or skies), and the total number of trips is on the rise. But the planet-warming potential of these journeys can add up: Flights, road trips, hotel stays, cranked up AC, and the seasonal splurge on summer travel gear can all bump up your personal share of planet-warming emissions.
Curbing the impact of seasonal spending can be fairly cut-and-dry (maybe skip out on that sundress or rent or borrow that camping gear), but the path toward reducing the environmental imprint of travel, specifically, is murky. While the impact of each trip does vary based on the mode of transport we choose and the distance we travel, some aspects are out of our control—say, the model of airplane you’re boarding, if a train is electric or diesel, or if sustainable aviation fuel ever really gets off the ground.
In the meantime, though, no one’s getting grounded for their emissions, and there are some ways to make each voyage gentler on the Earth. So we decided to fact-check commonly touted “eco” travel tips to help you figure out how best to enjoy your getaway without giving the planet a hard time. We rated each piece of advice on a (admittedly unscientific) scale of 0 to 5 🧳s, with 0 being “probably no help at all,” 2.5 being “sometimes true,” and 5 being “works for everyone, every time.”
Buying carbon offsets: ½
When grabbing plane tickets, you may have noticed an option to purchase carbon offsets to help zero out the emissions of your flight. These funds are great in theory: They direct money toward carbon-reduction efforts like forest preservation. But in practice they’re deeply flawed: Investigations and analysis have consistently found that these programs often drastically overstate (even fabricate) their emissions benefits. Crucially, offsets have also become a form of climate delay. They were created as a short-term solution to buy time for the airline industry to bring down emissions, explains Sola Zheng, a senior researcher at the International Council on Clean Transportation who studies the environmental impacts of commercial aviation.
Packing lighter: 🧳🧳
It seems like easy math: Reduce the weight of your bags and reduce the amount of fuel a plane burns to get and stay aloft. While this is technically true, an emptier duffel doesn’t make a major difference in a flight’s overall efficiency, says Zheng. Passenger weight, which includes both the persons and their luggage, only accounts for, at most, one-fifth a plane’s heft. “The weight that you’re transporting affects the amount of fuel that you need to burn, but the scale of that is quite small,” Zheng says. On road trips, however, how much you load up the trunk can directly impact how much gas you burn: An extra 100 pounds in your vehicle could cut fuel economy by up to 2%, simply because it takes more energy to get moving.
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THE ROUNDUP
IN THE NEWS THIS WEEK
The third United Nations Ocean Conference wrapped up last week in Nice, France, with mixed success. The biggest takeaways? A group of 19 countries signed onto the UN High Seas Treaty, bringing the total signatories up to 50. The treaty, which covers international waters which make up 60% of the world’s oceans, would require countries to work together to create marine protective areas as well as regulate human activities like fishing. The agreement needs 60 countries before it goes into action.
Brace yourself for some hot, muggy weather: Southerly winds and unusually warm temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico and western Atlantic are cranking up the humidity across nearly 40 states over the next two weeks. Those same overheated waters helped fuel the deadly downpours in Virginia––and they’re now setting the stage for more severe storms across the Plains and the Midwest.
Plant-based eaters can now duck into Denny’s for breakfast. After a limited March debut, the Plant-Based Pancake Slam—which features multigrain pancakes, fruit, and crispy hashbrowns—is now available across 1,311 locations. The addition marks a milestone in chain’s multi-year shift to expand its plant-based offerings, beginning with the addition of Beyond Burgers in 2020 and a Dr. Praeger trial in 2023.
Big banks handed more than $869 billion to fossil fuel firms last year, according to a new report from the Rainforest Action Network, Sierra Club, and other organizations. This brings their total post–Paris Agreement financing to $6.9 trillion. Despite pledges to reach net-zero by 2050 through initiatives like the Net Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA), cracks are showing: Six of the biggest banks in North America pulled out of the NZBA in late 2024 following President Trump’s re-election, despite growing evidence of the financial risks of worsening climate change.
Older companies are more sustainable than younger brands, according to a new study in Frontiers in Organizational Psychology. The authors looked at hundreds of firms of a range of ages and found that businesses that have been around for decades, especially those founded before 1850, tend to be more sustainable—possibly due to many years under the public eye. They aren’t off the hook though: The authors say policymakers should encourage mature companies to adopt more cutting-edge technologies while guiding younger ones towards sustainability strategies.
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