Article content continued

“I spend half my life on Skype and video conference calls,” he said. “But as a senior manager, the people who work in my team sometimes need to meet me in the flesh.”

He said that from September he would be making the trip only once a month and by train, because the restructuring of his team would be coming to an end “and my kids will be a little older.” John Saven, the head of Greenpeace in the U.K., wrote in his blog: “As for Pascal’s air travel. Well it’s a really tough one. Was it the right decision to allow him to use air travel to try to balance his job with the needs of his family for a while?

“For me, it feels like it gets to the heart of a really big question. What kind of compromises do you make in your efforts to try to make the world a better place?

So disappointed. Hardly had two pennies to rub together but have supported [Greenpeace] for 35+ years. Cancelling [direct debit] for while

“Honesty and integrity to the values that are at the heart of the good you’re trying to do in the world cannot be allowed to slip away. For what it’s worth, I don’t think we’ve crossed that line.”

Richard Lancaster, who said he had been involved with Greenpeace since the 1980s, responded: “I volunteer with Greenpeace but work in the commercial world and if I took a job in another country I’d expect to move to where the job is and if I couldn’t for family reasons I wouldn’t take the job — so I find Pascal’s travel arrangements almost unbelievable.” Another supporter wrote: “So disappointed. Hardly had two pennies to rub together but have supported [Greenpeace] for 35+ years. Cancelling [direct debit] for while.”

Greenpeace has campaigned to curb air travel and end “needless” domestic flights. In a briefing on “the problem with aviation,” the group said: “In terms of damage to the climate, flying is 10 times worse than taking the train.”