Is Greenwashing Taking Travellers to the Cleaners?
Brushing teeth with wooden bamboo toothbrush
Peninsula similarly has a baked-in “sustainable luxury” strand in its business DNA. The Peninsula Beverly Hills has waterless urinals and a waterless car wash and operates plastic-free. The wastewater treatment system at the Peninsula Bangkok generates water for reuse, and across the group LED lights are replacing old fixtures. The Indian Taj hotels are largely plastic-free and are investing in waste water management, recycling, and sustainable designs. In 2023 French chain Accor teamed up with Ecotourism Australia to green certify all its hotels across the country. This alliance has generated further awareness of climate issues and threatened biodiversity in areas like Northern Queensland, which hosts the Great Barrier Reef. One Tree Per Booking Ovolo Hotels’ “Do Good Feel Good” philosophy hopes to impact beneficially on people, the community and the planet. It offers to plant a tree for each direct booking in partnership with the Eden Reforestation Projects, an NGO that works to restore landscapes, create jobs and protect ecosystems in places as diverse as Ethiopia, Nepal and the Philippines.
Low Season Traveller
Singapore’s Parkroyal Collection Marina Bay represents a minor triumph for sustainability. The lobby is awash in green and real birdsong. Normally staid conventioneers love the place and there is no quibble about energy saving and filtered water - in glass bottles. It is well worth a visit.
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this, possibly unintended, is a diversion of tourist traffic to low-carbonfootprint areas. Lower-cost accommodations in rural areas tend to have a less wasteful manner and travellers visiting a heritage site in the desert or at a wildlife reserve are often more willing to conserve water and electricity and opt for a ceiling fan instead of an air-conditioner. According to the World Tourism Organization, travel as a whole accounts for an estimated 5% of global carbon emissions with hotels accounting for just 1%. It may seem a small number but every percentage point makes a difference. Flying Green With KLM making the move to sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) with a 1% SAF charge passed on to passengers (who seem receptive to the idea), it seems the world is reaching a tipping point where travellers finally realise they are part of the solution. Changi Airport in Singapore is at the forefront of this stimulus and wants all departing aircraft by 2026 to utilise at least 1% of sustainable aviation fuel in the mix (going up to 5% by 2030). This could mean slightly higher ticket prices as airlines make the shift. Creating demand for aviation biofuel - estimated at over US$100 billion in value in 2022 - in turn prods producers into action and brings in funding for research and development. It is a beneficial cycle.
Its sister hotel Pan Pacific Orchard offers similar green features with a stunning, if sweaty, open-air check-in where guests imagine themselves at a tropical resort rather than a city hotel.
Carbon offsets (with a few trees planted here and there to assuage business class guilt) don’t really encourage constructive thinking on this matter, or lifestyle changes.
In Hong Kong, the reimagined and refitted Lanson Place Causeway Bay is back with a substantial investment in its Swedish Nordaq water filtration system. No plastics. Just glass bottles.
Governments can do more to come up with incentives and tax breaks for companies developing biofuel or opting for green certification like LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) and ISO 14001. While these terms mean little to most travellers, they’re a starting point for an environmentally friendly future.
But sustainability need not be just for the rich and famous. In India, Airbnb has teamed up with the Ministry of Tourism to bring out an attractive Soul of India site focusing on paths less trod and heritage sites that richly showcase cultural diversity. A useful by-product of
This article first appeared in Smart Travel Asia in March 2024.
Singapore Changi Airport (Right)
