Myclimate confronts influencers about their travel behavior
The jet-set lives of influencers cause massive climate-damaging emissions. With a large-scale climate protection campaign, Myclimate now wants to confront the celebrities publicly - on their own channels. An intelligent bot scans air travel worldwide and generates social media comments and the first influencer CO2 ranking.
Drake flies to the golf course, Taylor Swift jets 170 times a year - such climate-damaging "journeys" have already been picked up on several times in the media. Now the non-profit climate protection organization Myclimate is presenting a tool that should bring less obvious data to light: Namely, the 100 biggest influencers traveled a distance of over 8 million kilometers in 2022, causing CO2 emissions of 1,393 tons. To sequester this amount of CO2, 100,000 trees need more than one year. The ranking is updated continuously and was recently supplemented by the evaluation of the 1st quarter of 2023.
The bot was realized in cooperation with the web developers of Championship Records. On the one hand, the flight movements of private jets are analyzed via public flight trackers. Additionally, Instagram posts with location markers are translated into travel routes. Many influencers use location markers on Instagram to share their travels. The bot detects travel movements worldwide and comments on them directly on the social media channels of the prominent frequent flyers. At the same time, the travel activities flow into the "myclimate Carbon Ranking" on Carbontracker.myclimate.org one. For the ranking, the Instagram profiles with the most followers worldwide and from Germany were analyzed. In addition, the posts of the micro-influencers with the widest reach were evaluated. 
The aim of the campaign is to create greater awareness of climate-damaging travel behavior and to highlight alternatives. It also aims to encourage people to take responsibility for their own emissions.
"We only use data that the celebrities themselves publish. If a champagne photo was tagged in Las Vegas and the next day the location marker shows Lloret de Mar, the Myclimate carbon tracker jumps in," explains Myclimate marketing manager Daniel Aregger. "Our 'service' consists of an automated post on their Twitter or Instagram profile. They are made aware of their CO2 emissions and redirected to our emissions calculator. There, travel behavior is both critiqued and a donation to climate protection projects is suggested."
Myclimate's carbon tracker has, according to its own information, reached a record number of people via the social media channels set up for this purpose. Twitter and Instagram already confronted several hundred social media stars such as Paris Hilton, Martin Garrix or Rahel with their travel behavior at the launch.
