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INTERVIEW
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DAVID LEVENTHAL
David Leventhal
AIR, LAND AND SEA
THE WIDER ROLE OF THE HOTELIER DAVID LEVENTHAL, CO-FOUNDER OF PLAYA VIVA HAS BEEN AN INSPIRATION TO THE NETWORK FROM THE START. HE SPOKE THIS YEAR ABOUT ACHIEVING B-CORP CERTIFICATION AND IS NOW INSPIRED BY HIS PROJECT TO REGENERATE THE ENTIRE WATERSHED AROUND HIS RESORT FROM RIVER TO OCEAN. BUT WHEN IT COMES TO OFFSETTING FLIGHTS, HE BELIEVES BIGGER IMPACTS CAN BE MADE CLOSER TO HOME.
SONU SHIVDASANI TALKED RECENTLY ABOUT HOW HE IS CONCENTRATING NOW ON HOW TO TACKLE THE FOOTPRINT OF THE GUESTS TRAVELING TO HIS RESORTS? WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS? This is a “soapbox” issue for me, you might regret having asked. It’s easy to just “flight shame” and say, “How can Play Viva, or any of one of these regenerative resorts be sustainable if people have to fly to them?” But this question is NOT focusing on the underlying problem. Paul Hawkin wrote a book called ‘Drawdown’, in which he lists the top 100 things we can do to “draw down” the carbon in the atmosphere. Based on flight shaming, you would think air travel would be in the top 10. It is not and it’s not in the top 20 either, it’s not even in the top 50. I believe it’s like 74 or 75. The top 10 items include air conditioning, educating women and girls and issues related to food and agriculture, such as eating a plant-based diet, deforestation, food waste and more. So rather than focus on carbon offsetting your flight and flight shaming, let’s focus on the top 10, top 20, top 50 first! When a guest comes to Playa Viva, there’s no air conditioning, they enjoy locally sourced farm-to-table food and all of our food waste feeds the pigs on our farm and that’s just the start. We are 100% off-grid solar, reforesting the ecosystem,
planting mangroves, cleaning up the water quality and working in the community on educating women and girls and keeping them in school longer. If you’re traveling to a hotel, and you’re offsetting your carbon, yet your hotel is serving meat flown in from Argentina, wine imported from France, powered by dirty fossil fuels, filling the local landfills with waste, etc. then who cares about off-setting your flights to get to your hotel. Bottomline, let’s focus on the most impactful items first. Sonu is definitely a leader in the field and an OG to many of us and someone that I follow for inspiration, but from our personal perspective, I look at Drawdown and Paul Hawkins for inspiration related to the issue of travel vs other areas of making a real impact to draw down the carbon in our atmosphere. WHO WOULD YOU LIKE TO HEAR SPEAK AT A FUTURE EVENT? I always really enjoy hearing Bill Bensley and respect his ability to stay true to his design style while integrating sustainable innovations. Robyn Woodhead and the work that she does as well in support of Antarctica. To hear from more innovators like them would be wonderful.
