Lifestyle | Travel | Sustainable Travel
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Buzzwords and clichés abound in the responsible travel and sustainability space, and it can be hard to know which are the tour operators and hotels who are really working ethically and who are just pretending. So we’ve compiled the most important terms you need to know, so you can cut through all the corporate jargon talk and know who’s actually walking the walk.
ANIMAL WELFARE – It might seem obvious that most of us would prefer to admire animals living their best lives in their natural environments. Signing up to camel rides or koala cuddling is rarely the right thing to do. The importance of this verbiage is that it denotes a business is giving us an assurance that throughout its supply chains, it only encourages ethical and respectful interactions with wildlife. Sorry folks, that means skipping taking selfies with any critters, as cute as they may be, and saying no to experiences that aren’t akin to how animals would exist in the wild. When a big tour operator announces it has stopped selling tickets to shows with captive dolphins, and only offers wild-watching experiences, it is an important message to the industry.
BIODIVERSITY – This one word carries with it serious significance when it comes to representing the complexity of all life on Earth – and our planet’s dependence on a healthy, functioning interconnectedness of all species. Damaged ecosystems are a consequence of the climate emergency, and caring for all creatures speaks to our planet’s bigger-picture wellbeing. Nurturing all aspects of nature is one of the most powerful climate solutions, and why we salute Responsible Travel’s nature-positive holidays and always look for companies whose trips actively protect nature.
BIOPHILIA – Stemming from the idea that us humans have an innate love and need for nature, this concept has been popularised by an uptick intalk about the benefits of biophilic design. Buildings and furnishings that follow a biophilic approach in look and feel use materials found in the wild, and mimic and simulate organic references, in turn tuning us in to caring for nature more, even in urban locales. 1 Hotels Mayfair arriving in W1 brings with it a dose of biophilic design to the capital, complete with a living, breathing green chandelier created from thousands of air plants in its lobby, just a skip from Piccadilly.
CARBON FOOTPRINT– This reference to the total amount of greenhouse gases generated by the actions of an organisation or individual is now part of everyday parlance, yet many of us don’t know its genesis. The term was first conjured up by an ad agency for BP, with the aim of shifting a sense of responsibility for emissions from the oil companies on to individuals. British Petroleum launched its carbon footprint calculator in 2004, suggesting we be mindful of totting up our emissions from our everyday actions; us calculating whether to cycle to work instead of driving, say, would cunningly distract our attentions from the oil and gas industry’s yeti-sized footprints. That’s not to say our actions don’t make a difference. Costa Rica is the place our travels have the lowest impact on climate, according to a report from Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra), thanks to this Central American nation’s renewables-powered national grid and nature conservation.
CARBON SCOPES 1, 2, 3 – This is the measurement of emissions categorised into three catchments – and an important metric to be aware of. Scope 1 covers direct CO2 emissions caused by a company’s facilities and vehicles. Scope 2 is the indirect emissions from the purchase of all forms of energy. Scope 3 is the trickiest to calculate, since it covers all indirect emissions, spanning purchased goods and services through to whatever any third-party travel leaves in its wake. If a hotel group, for example, proves itis monitoring all three scopes, that’s impressive.
CARBON NEUTRAL – This much-used label is slapped on by businesses when they’ve measured the amount of carbon they’re responsible for releasing and then thrown money at offset programmes paying for an equivalent amount in carbon ‘credits’. It’s a tactic fast losing credibility since it doesn’t speak to the improvements being made to reduce the causes of their emissions. A worthy carbon-neutral-labelled escapade though, is with Exo as it endeavours to scrutinise every stage in its value chain.
CERTIFICATION – Accreditations vary in integrity and reliability, and when it comes to sustainability standards, it can be hard to identify which badge is an assurance of genuine positive impact. Ask yourself whether a business gained that cute kitemark from a trusted third-party assessment that worked with its team to measure and optimise operations from energy use to ethical employment, or make a call on whether winning that lovely little leaf logo was likely financed from its PR and marketing budget. We salute hotels that monitor their sustainability through systems such as the Science Based Targets initiative, or they’ve achieved Earth check’s platinum status, which means they’ve been gold for a decade.
CIRCULAR ECONOMY – Going round in circles is a good thing when a ‘closed-loop’ is cited in sustainability: it refers to a reduction in waste and involves goods being sourced and then reused in a way that their life is extended, mimicking natural systems. We commend Iberostar hotel group for talking about this tactic with conviction, with the goal of eventually not sending anything to landfill.
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COMMUNITY TOURISM – Also known as community-based tourism (CBT), these holidays place local people at the heart of a business, so they host visitors in properties owned and run by the community so that locals benefit financially and engage more meaningfully with tourists. Typically, CBT projects exist in destinations that benefit directly from traveller spend, and these initiatives have a direct positive social and economic impact through employment and involving locals in decision-making. Enterprises around the world are supported by the Global Community Tourism Network that was set up by Planeterra, the non-profit arm of G Adventures.
ECOTOURISM – A term to be brandished when a trip is truly a nature-positive travel experience. Light in environmental touch, it might be where you are staying or the activities you get up to, not only letting you appreciate and immerse yourself in nature but ideally also funding and supporting its protection. Hotels that are members of the Long Run, which is part of Preferred by Nature, can be relied upon.
ESG – There’s lots of chat about environmental, social and corporate governance in financial reports now, since this fast became the biggest catch-all buzzword for any business aiming to polish its decarbonisation creds or look socially conscious. Since there isn’t one clear universal ESG framework, it has also become a topic of debate around how meaningful it is when making big sustainability commitment declarations and Black Rock’s boss, Larry Fink, is one CEO to have distanced himself from this rating system. As ever, though, better you know what it means, and it should be about meaningful impact and transparency, not box-ticking.
GLOBAL WARMING – A phrase believed to have been coined by a geochemist at New York’s Columbia University in 1975, it’s the gradual increase in the world’s temperature from a boost in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere as a result of the greenhouse effect, where surface temperatures rise, too, and the oceans absorb more heat. Extreme weather worldwide – from blizzards to hurricanes – is linked to short-circuiting due to higher-than-normal temperatures affecting the entire global system.
GREENHOUSE EFFECT – This is the name for when heat is trapped in the troposphere by a blanket of gases such as methane, water vapour and carbon dioxide, as identified by a Swedish physicist back in the late 1800s. These gases have largely been expelled from the continued extraction and burning of fossil fuels, such as oil, coal and gas. A process first turbocharged by the Industrial Revolution’s 19th-century burning of coal through to modern-day consumer lifestyles is part of the same conversation.
GREENWASHING – Increasingly widespread, this is when companies overstate self-congratulatory claims that suggest their social or environmental conscience exceeds the actual good they do. It can be unintentional misinformation or deliberate disinformation intended to distract or confuse. And it’s been effective. An example in travel might be a hotel’s flimsy nod to eco-amenities, such as a big foreign-owned, five-star outpost built from concrete in a desert, where it draws water away from local farmers, doesn’t pay decent salaries and imports all food and drink, yet shouts about its bamboo toothbrushes or token-gesture turtle-tagging.
INDIGENOUS PEOPLES – First-Nations people may make up only five percent of the world’s population yet they are guardians of lands that host 80 percent of the world’s biodiversity. Supporting business and experiences that are led, and even better owned, by Indigenous people and communities, leads to the empowerment and economic betterment of these most effective custodians of nature, helping preserve carbon-storing swathes of land. Intrepid offers an array of First Nations-led tours.
NET ZERO – A big and bold boast often from those guilty of greenwashing, this status tends to be based on third-party offsets rather thana full transition to cleaner, greener energy or low-emissions activity. Critics say labels such as this can be distracting from the bigger priority, which isreducing carbon emissions at source with transparency and accountability across Scopes 1, 2, 3, as detailed above. Shorthand for ‘we measure our emissions to the max’, Room2 Hotels declares its Chiswick outpost as a ‘100 per cent net zero’ exemplar, in terms of construction, operation and considering the full life-cycle of the building.
OFFSETTING – The reason eco-warriors roll their eyes at the mention of offsets is that all too often they’re considered a shortcut instead of a solution. The problem with tokenistic tree-planting is not just it doesn’t absolve the payers from their emissions peccadillos, there’s always a news headline declaring so-called-certified rainforest offset schemes bogus when audited. How to know what’s legit and what’s likely to lead to lining the pockets of opportunistic carbon-offset cowboys? We trust Sustainable Travel International’s rationale and the fact it puts credits into registered forestry, green energy and blue carbon projects.
OVERTOURISM – We’ve all seen the negative effects of the footfall from backpacker and low-cost holiday throngs descending on mass-tourism hotspots without a care for the local scenery or community. Instead of adding to the buzzkill of so many marauding hordes, sustainable travel experts advocate ‘redistributed travel’ and encourage ‘undertourism’ – where you keep well away from the most popular co-ordinates in high season and aim to spend time where your presence is more of a boon than a burden to local communities.
PLASTIC FREE – It’s not easy being green, sang The Muppet Show’s Kermit – and as far as we know that was without the famous frog even attempting to kick out all things throwaway. There’s clearly a plethora of reasons to skip single-use, from the fact plastics are manufactured using petrochemicals to thetonnes of PET products that end up in our waterways. But it can be complicated completely kicking this habit if you’re a big operator. We salute Six Senses, a sustainability-minded hotel group that has long been a shirker; it was one of the first signatories of the Global Tourism Plastics Initiative.
REGENERATIVE – A term du jour, it’s a helpful word to prompt us to think more deeply about what it means to move beyond mere sustainability. Ask how a movement or business is actively going that bit further by genuinely regenerating nature or giving an economic boost to a struggling community. Regenerative Travel signposts us to some of the hero hotels that identify in this way.
RENEWABLE ENERGY – Travel operations powered by energy sources that replenish naturally, such as solar, wind or hydroelectric, deserve a thumbs up. Hotels plugged into their own clean, green energy earn a big glowing halo. Chances are, otherwise, if you ask how the fan is powered in that thatched beach cabin on a seemingly pristine desert island, it’ll be down to a dirty diesel generator. Family-run Hotel Geysir in Haukadalur, Iceland, makes the most of those hot springs as its name hints, and it runs on a cunning geothermal system.
REWILDING – Praise be for the restoration of forests and wildernesses. After all, prodding nature into repair, enhancing ecosystems and encouraging a carbon-capturing richness of biodiversity is a step up from conservation. All the better if you can book an adventure in the greatest outdoors that also funds this mighty climate solution. Book in for a safari at Knepp Estate in Suffolk, or salute Birch Selsdon for rewilding golfing greens near Croydon. Rewilding Europe offers trips that support this important nurturing of nature.
ZERO WASTE – If the aim of this game is sending no trash at all to landfill (as in absolutely zilch) it’s tougher than the catchy name conveys. Especially in a world where so many hotels like to woo and coddle us consumers with cute gifts and amenities or spare themselves a waste-management hassle or headache. When it comes to wow-inducing waste efficiency, a back-of-house tour of a property’s sorting and recycling facilities might not be your bag, but be assured if they even invite you for a look-see behind the scenes, that’s a seriously good sign. Hotel Verde at Cape Town Airport has been declared Africa’s greenest bunk-up – and its staff will take you on a tour to prove how and why.
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