by After eschewing corporate jobs to find a way to continue to travel, Darrell Wade, as he tells it, was very happy with life and his business taking off. But the climate crisis was not yet on his radar.
The Australian entrepreneur was on holiday in Botswana in 2005, fresh from winning an award for responsible travel, when he read The Weather Makers – a book by scientist Tim Flannery that spells out the causes and consequences of global warming. “I was happy, and then I read that book. And I thought, holy shit, we’re a disaster – we’re doing the wrong thing.”
The co-founder and chairman of Intrepid Travel – the world’s largest travel company to be accredited as a B Corporation for its social and environmental performance – Wade seems generous and self-deprecating, smiling often, but not pulling punches. Moments earlier, he told delegates attending the Abta convention, the annual gathering of the UK travel industry, that their climate record was a “failure”, prompting a brief outburst of self-flagellation in the hall. conference in Bodrum, Turkey.
After spending years as an advocate for sustainability standards within the industry, Wade told them, he found that one in three travel companies were still “actively hostile” to policies aimed at reducing travel’s carbon footprint. Another third were ambivalent – and the best ones, well, they weren’t doing enough.
That includes his own company, he admits – even though Intrepid’s adventure travel vacations have been audited as climate neutral since 2010. “So in theory, we’re doing our part, but, you know, the truth is, we didn’t. Enough.”
As Wade admits, that carbon audit has a big caveat: Intrepid doesn’t sell the flights that take its customers, mainly from the UK, US and Australia, to the starting point of their low-impact sustainable journeys. Isn’t that a bit like Heathrow proudly claiming to be net-zero, if it wasn’t for all those pesky planes? “That’s right, it’s very similar,” he says. “Consumers want to take a holiday. Let’s say half of those holidays are taken by aviation – we need to fix our industry.”
He believes there is a role for offsets and, ultimately, sustainable aviation fuels, when (or if) they are made on a large scale from green hydrogen. But, he says, travel must move from relying on offsets to “definitely reducing emissions per person per day now”. “Offsets have to be credible,” he says. “And at the moment, they are not. That’s the reality.”
There are good business incentives to go green, according to Wade, particularly cost savings on fuel bills. And despite the fact that there is no answer on the horizon for the travel environment, he says: “You just have to hold people’s feet to the fire, talk about it, [say] hey, we have a problem. And all the rhetoric in the world is not going to solve this problem. You need taxation, you need regulation, you need media pressure – you need litigation as a last resort.”
We really go into a cultural immersion, to relatively great lengths – sometimes even to rub the noses of our passengers in all aspects of the country.
Wade co-founded Intrepid in Australia in 1989 after a brief foray into corporate life after university and travel. He was hoping to find out what kind of company he wanted to travel with, but there wasn’t – something for the ex-packer who liked seeing the world that way, but only had a few weeks of annual leave from work. .
After almost quitting the start-up for a paying job and a bigger salary when the first child came along, he stuck with it, with profitable results in the end. Wade stepped back as chief executive in 2017 to enjoy more travel time, but, with co-founder Geoff Manchester, still owns most of the firm (“I don’t know if I’m what you call super rich, but I’m doing well,” he admits.)
French investors Genairgy, co-owners of sports retailer Decathlon, bought a 30% stake in 2021. Intrepid has taken more than 145,000 people on tour in 112 countries in 2022, and aims to be a A$1bn (£520m) concern by 2030. , with a current annual growth rate of 25%.
“The market seems to be evolving,” says Wade, citing the convergence of “global megatrends” around sustainability, connectivity and experiences. “We’re in that sweet spot. We grow in spite of ourselves – I don’t think we’re particularly clever, we’re in the right place.”
Wade now differentiates Intrepid from other competitors in this market, saying: “We really go into cultural immersion, to pretty extreme lengths – sometimes even rubbing our passengers’ noses in all aspects of the country, good or bad.”
The main practical difference is the use of less conventional accommodation and more public transport. “He just has that vibrancy. It’s not necessarily more comfortable – sometimes it’s just the opposite – but it’s interesting, it’s vital,” he says.
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“I hate places like this,” he says, meaning the all-inclusive resort that hosts the Abta convention. Wade is here, he says, urging his wife (“the original communist”) to use the platform to demand change. “Because places like this – you never talk to people. If you don’t have that, you’re missing one of the great benefits of travel, which is that exchange of ideas.”
All in all, Wade says he feels no guilt about a role that promotes globe-trotting travel, but a sense of responsibility: “We have a lot to answer for, especially when it comes to climate change. The flip side of that is that I think the industry has a lot to be proud of as well.
“Although we hurt ourselves, the travel industry does an incredible amount of good. I really think it has probably lifted more people out of poverty than the international NGO sector, just with the money we spend. So, as much as, from an environmental point of view, we should not be going into the case of airplanes, there is the other side of the coin, which is very beneficial. It’s so complicated.”
CV
Age 62
Family Married with three grown children.
Education Degree in economics from the University of Melbourne.
Pay About A$200,000 (£105,000) – “but to be honest probably the biggest thing is dividends.”
Last holiday Traveling in countries across eastern Africa with his wife.
The best advice he has been given From his father, just before he decided on Intrepid: “Just tell him. If it doesn’t work, don’t worry about it.”
Biggest career mistake Part of the company was sold to Tui before eventually being disabled – “We gave them a crap load of money, and it started all over again.”
A phrase he uses too much “No dramas!”
How to relax Walking, and long hot baths.
Abta provided the Observer’s travel for his travel convention in Bodrum
