Green travel ideas from two environmentally conscious travelers

The New Oxford American Dictionary’s word of the year for 2006 was “carbon-neutral,” which gives you some sense of the fad that is carbon offsets. With the success of Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, there is a rising wave of guilt about the carbon dioxide that we each produce in the course of our daily lives, and carbon offsets gave us a way to erase that CO₂ along with the guilt. “Carbon-neutral” is just a cooler, sexier, trendier way of communicating the same “guilt-free” consumer mentality that American culture is known for – e.g. “fat-free,” “low-cal,” etc.Well, the truth is, carbon offsets like those that TerraPass sells are a lot more complicated than all that. The principle behind an offset is that to compensate for your own carbon dioxide emissions, you buy a share in a project that is actively reducing carbon emissions somewhere in the world – including renewable energy projects, reforestation schemes, bio fuel production, and anything else that might be a carbon sink or prevent carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere. We recognize the value of these carbon offsets while also acknowledging their limitations:

Carbon Offset Pros:

• In cases where emissions are inevitable, offsets provide a way to do something to remediate the effects.
• Offsets are a source of investment for renewable energy and other projects to mitigate climate change, therefore filling the void that some governments have left by not stepping in to regulate and/or limit carbon dioxide emissions.
• In many cases, offsets are a catalyst for change in the developing world, where renewable energy projects funded by the developed world could be the basis of a sustainable growth and development curve going forward.

Carbon Offset Cons:

• Buying offsets makes people feel that it’s okay to pollute if they simply compensate for their actions by buying credits.
• Offsets are unlikely to be as effective and permanent in removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as we are in emitting the carbon dioxide to begin with.
• The industry is almost completely unregulated and therefore largely not held accountable for the emissions promises it makes.

Our Bottom Line: Although we support the idea of purchasing offsets from a reputable company to mitigate inevitable carbon emissions, we think that the term “carbon-neutral” is misleading, because it lends too much credit to the effectiveness of the nascent carbon offset industry. It also takes attention away from non-global warming related environmental issues and what we can do individually to reduce our impact and need for offsets. Carbon offsets should be used in combination with the other environmentally responsible travel practices like selecting an environmentally-friendly hotel or choosing an environmentally-friendly destination, not as an indulgence that can be bought to pardon all of our environmental sins.

By now, the environmental sins of bottled water have been well-documented. Bottled water is a luxury good in the developed world, where we can drink water that’s just as good (if not better) right out of the tap. Plus, only about one-fourth of the plastic bottles that we consume in this country actually get recycled. And the petroleum that we use to produce the PET bottle plastics is derived from petroleum.

All in all, plastics are a dirty material, mainly because they never biodegrade, so unless we recycle it, the plastic we produce could well fester in a landfill or float on the surface of the ocean for generations… possibly forever. Charles Moore is well known for his research on the floating plastic in the oceans, mainly because he found a persistent area of floating plastic the size of Texas out in the North Pacific Ocean.

The bottom line? We need to find ways to curb our consumption of plastic, and unfortunately, one of the times we feel we can’t avoid consuming beverages in plastic bottles is when we’re traveling. Here are a couple of tricks to avoid plastic bottles entirely:

1) When flying, bring an empty plastic bottle or Nalgene through security and fill it up at a water fountain inside security. As long as you’re not transporting any liquids at all, you are unlikely to run afoul of security. Aluminium bottles are an even more stylish choice of container.

2) When traveling to a country where you can’t drink the water straight out of the tap, consider bringing a purifying system instead of drinking bottled water. Obviously, this is more practical in Russia than, say, Bangladesh, but if you bring your MSR purification system (a filter alone is not sufficient to kill viruses - for that you need chlorine), you should be able to make the drinking water potable in most situations. Consult the manufacturer to confirm that your choice of purification systems kills all the local critters you’ll be exposed to.

(Thanks to the folks at Lonely Planet for this second tip!)

Before I get to the substance of my post, I want to remind our readers that today is Blog Action Day, an annual event when thousands of bloggers get together to weigh in on the same topic. This year, the topic is the environment. Well done, selection committee! We’re all too happy to participate.

OK, so now let me explain my post title. I was intrigued a couple of weeks ago to see that Ecuador had used the Clinton Global Initiative as a forum to announce their plans NOT to drill for one billion barrels of proven oil reserves in Yasuni National Park in the Ecuadorian Amazon.

The announcement was a fascinating and quite unexpected commitment from a country that could really use those oil dollars. President Correa of Ecuador announced that they would commit investment to renewable energy instead, and then the last sentence of the press release reads: “The plan also includes promotion of ecotourism and sustainable development for Ecuador’s Amazonian region.”

I have two reactions to this:

1) Wow. If Ecuador, a country that has a per capita income of 4,500 can look past it’s immediate economic needs and toward a more sustainable long-term growth model, why can’t we do the same thing in the U.S. - where per-capita wealth is more than 10 times larger? I mean, seriously!

2) More importantly, I think this story is all about travel, and the press release buried the lede. Ecuador sees an opportunity to expand on its already substantial ecotourism business and become the Costa Rica of South America with both a strong nature-based tourism draw and a significant portfolio of renewable energy. And to get back to my creative terminology, this is the “sticky green residue” left behind by all of those tourists who visited the Galapagos recently. I say “sticky,” because all those tourist dollars spent in Ecuador over the years have lodged in the mind of government officials and made them realize that they have too much to lose if they permit drilling to go forward.

Here’s a concrete example of how travel can make a net positive impact on the world’s environment.

So don’t be ashamed for taking that overseas trip. Find those “simple green choices” that you can make to reduce your travel’s environmental impact, but also take heart that you could be doing the world a lot of good by making other countries appreciate the power of the tourist dollar. That might just be the incentive they need to conserve their natural resources.

Disagree with me about Ecuador’s oil or the benefits of tourism? Leave a comment below or send us an e-mail at simplegreenchoices@gmail.com.

If you have not yet heard, Al Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize today!

Well, he happened to be in the SF Bay area at the time and a few Kangos got special access to his press conference today:

True to his cause he arrived in a sedan powered by bio diesel. The Conference was held at the Alliance for Climate Protection offices in Palo Alto.

First his wife Tipper Gore spoke saying that Al would be coming into the room 2 minutes to give a brief statement and also that he would not be answering questions; when he arrived he was greeted by 100+ news-people.

Then the former vice president thanked the Nobel Prize committee for selecting him the (shared) winner and he stated that he would donate the prize to green efforts; he also said that he was going to go to Europe to accept the prize in person.

Then he spoke briefly about the continuing effects of global warming on the polar ice caps: “polar scientists are now warning that at current rates the polar ice caps will be completely gone within only 27 years” (or language very similar, our Kango blogger was relying only on his memory)

Then Gore spoke passionately delivering a call in the form of an African proverb.

Gore said: “There is an old African proverb, If you want to go fast; go alone, if you want to go far; go together, we need to act both quickly and together to put an end to the climate crisis” (Again this quote is from memory)

With that, he concluded the press conference and thanked everyone for coming.

As he walked out of the room he was met with shouts from the press “Mr. Vice President Do you plan to run for president after winning this award?… Mr Vice President!”

With that; he left the room and he went to a private meeting with members of the Alliance for Climate Protection.

Gore’s Message is a one that is loud and clear: we need to act as one in the same direction if we want to go far and protect our planet.

This message starts with making simple green choices; while these changes can be very simple:

• Selecting an environmentally friendly hotel
• Flying greener
• And walking the walk

…but can collectively make a huge difference.

Gore: keep up the good work, we need you.

Whereas the environmental impact of transportation is fairly clear-cut, other travel decisions can be significantly more fuzzy. Lodging is a good example. What is it that makes a hotel environmentally friendly? Sure, it’s great to give guests the option of reusing towels, but what else should hotels be doing to minimize their impact? And how can you pick a hotel that is genuinely minimizing their environmental impact?

The first thing to look for is whether a hotel in your destination has been certified by a Green Lodging organization. Although there is not a universal standard for hotel certification, there are several smaller organizations that certify hotels on a regional basis. Below are a few of the organizations to try first:

• Green Globe (International)
• Terra Choice (U.S. and Canada)
• Green Seal (U.S. only)
• Rainforest Alliance (Caribbean and Latin America)
• Orbitz (Mostly domestic)

Once you’ve exhausted these organizations, you have a couple of options. First of all, you could try booking hotel chains that have made a public commitment to environmental practices, such as Hilton. Motel 6 has even professed to be “born-again” green, but as with all non-certified properties, you should ask what they are really doing beyond the bare minimum to reduce their energy and waste streams.

Finally, your last resort is to book your lodging independently and do your own research. “Research” means calling your top contenders and asking some hard questions. In an interview with MSN, Ronald Sanabria, the director of sustainable tourism for the Rainforest Alliance in Costa Rica, suggests the following questions:

How does your property contribute to the local community?

• What is your property doing to conserve energy and water?
• What does your property do to minimize waste and its impact on the community?
• How does your property promote sustainable travel?

Finally, if you’re staying in a lodge that claims to be an eco-tourist retreat and is located in an environmentally important or sensitive area, it’s especially important that you do your due diligence and make sure that they’re living up to their “eco-tourist” label, because if they don’t, they may be doing serious damage to the ecosystem and the local communities. ResponsibleTravel.com has a list of 10 additional questions to ask, including how many locals (including guides) the facility employs and what education programs they have on local ecology and culture, among others.

So after my last post, I got to thinking. What does it mean in practice to try to reduce your environmental impact (or “budget”) when you’re on vacation. Well, one obstacle is that some environmentally-friendly choices aren’t available in some travel destinations (and stay tuned for much more on that subject soon), and another common obstacle is that making those “simple green choices” can actually INCREASE the price we pay for services on the road.

For example, it’s great that Avis now offers both the Prius and Nissan Altima Hybrid for rent (leaving aside that their “Cool Cars” fleet also includes gas guzzlers like the Hummer H3), but if you rent a Prius at San Francisco airport, you’ll pay $73 per day rack rate versus $63 per day for a regular full size car. A $10 premium. Or how about offsetting your emissions for that next flight from New York to London. There’s another $10 plus if you buy an offset at TerraPass.

One of the reasons more and more large corporations are offering environmentally-friendly products is that they believe you, the customer, will pay a little bit extra for them and therefore cover any extra costs they may have along the way.

Well, the Travel Industry Association released a press release at the end of last week (Thanks for the link, Yen!), suggesting that most travelers want to purchase environmentally-friendly services on the road, but only 13% said they would pay more for them. 56% said they might pay more. However, 76% percent of those polled said they would pay less than 10 percent more. This story was also picked up in the St. Petersburg Times.

It’s obvious from trying to make sense of the data that this poll was poorly designed, but it does get at a crucial question: are we willing to spend more for environmental responsibility? Nearly everyone in this poll considered him or herself an environmentalist, but do our spending habits tell the same story?

Before you start planning a trip, you need to decide where you’re going, and since your choice of destination (and corresponding travel to/from) is a huge determining factor in the environmental impact of your trip, keep the following factors in mind.

Consider Local Alternatives: Every mile you travel in a plane or car emits carbon dioxide into the air, which is just another factor you should consider when evaluating the cost of the trip. Think of your carbon emissions just like you would a high-priced airline ticket. An expensive ticket might not keep you from taking a trip you really want to take, but it will make you think twice about how much you really want to go. When traveling long distances where your carbon footprint is going to be significant, think about how important the long trip really is to you and your family, and if you think the trip is dispensable or it might be easier to stay local, then look into a destination closer to home that might be a good alternative. If you decide to reevaluate your destination, the resources at www.Kango.com can guide you to a nearby destination that meets the criteria for activities, lodging and anything else that you’re looking for.

Travel Longer and Reduce Your Carbon “Jet Lag”: Another way to look at the carbon emissions you’ll produce on your vacation is like jet lag. You probably wouldn’t want to travel all the way to New Zealand for a four-day vacation, because you’d spend most of your time in the plane and you would suffer from jet lag the rest of the trip. Well, carbon emissions follow a similar rule. When you’re traveling a long way for a short visit, you’re contributing a huge amount of carbon to the atmosphere for a relatively small benefit. So you should save that international trip for sometime when you and your family can get a longer time off from work and school. For short vacation windows of a week or less, think about less ambitious trips. Slowtrav.com is a good resource if you’re interested in this philosophy, which they call “slow travel.”

Reward Environmentally Forward Destinations: All destinations are not created equal. Some countries and regions have shown a lot more sustainable and environmental foresight than others. Why not make your choice of vacation destinations on that basis? For example, in the U.S., California is showing leadership on renewable energy and is increasing its renewable energy portfolio standards. Internationally, Costa Rica currently produces 96% of its electricity from renewable sources and aims to be carbon-neutral through reforestation programs by 2030. Iceland has set a goal of transitioning to a 100% hydrogen-based zero-carbon economy by 2050, powered by geothermal and hydroelectric sources. If you switch on a light bulb today in either Costa Rica or Iceland, you cause less environmental harm than if you were to do so at home in the United States, and you can take comfort that you are spending tourist dollars in a place that deserves to be rewarded for its environmental policies. Check out the results of the 2005 Environmental Sustainability Index to see how your dream destination country measures up on a range of environmental metrics. Finland is #1 out of 146 countries, and the U.S. ranks 45^th between Armenia and Myanmar. You can see the ranked list on Wikipedia or you can view the whole report at the official ESI site. National Geographic also rated 115 world destinations on their sustainability and stewardship and published the results in 2004. Another inspiring list of eco-friendly destinations can be found at the Independent Traveler website.

Make the Most of Your Trip: So you’ve decided on a destination. Your next step is to have fun. After you’ve bought your plane ticket and decided on offsets for your emissions, leave your guilt behind and enjoy your trip. Make the most environmentally-friendly decisions you can along the way (and you can see other sections of this guide for details), but don’t let anything get in the way of enjoying your vacation. After all, the two commandments of any environmentally conscious traveler should be to…

1) Reduce your environmental footprint as much as possible

2) Have the most enjoyable trip possible

And if I could sneak in a third commandment, it would be: gracefully share what you have learned with your friends so they can do more with less too!

So you’re planning a trip to Europe over the winter holidays, and you want to make sure you don’t have to cash out any of your 401K to do so (ouch!). Well, obviously a good idea might be to whip out an Excel spreadsheet and plan out a line item budget of your trip. Line items might include:

• Airfare
• Car Rental
• Accommodations
• Meals
• Entertainment
• Miscellaneous/Incidentals

Such an exercise is a great way to get you thinking about your budget and the costs that each part of your trip will incur. Of course, your travel won’t just incur monetary costs. There are environmental costs, as well, which aren’t necessarily factored into the prices you pay for your hotel stay, your meals, and your flight overseas. The line items for your environmental travel budget look like the following:

• Carbon dioxide emissions (from air travel, car travel, other transportation, and electricity use, see TerraPass for a breakdown of emissions)
• Other emissions from electricity generation and transportation (methane, sulfur dioxide, and particulates)
• Solid waste (including organic matter and recyclable materials)
• Water pollution (particularly if you travel to a developing world country, where your waste might end up in surface water)
• Deforestation (if the food you eat has been sourced from a farmer or rancher who practices slash-and-burn practices)

Unfortunately, we are so insulated from these costs that it’s difficult to assign them a value on our spreadsheet. Only with carbon emissions can we assign a real value and pay for those costs through a carbon offset program.

It’s these hidden environmental costs that inspired SimpleGreenChoices. As we continue on through the coming weeks and months, we will continue to show you many different ways that you can manage your environmental travel budget while still having the trip of a lifetime.

I’m an avid hiker, and one of my favorite organizations is Leave No Trace. It’s not so much what they do as an organization as who they are and the ethics they promote. For those of you who don’t know, Leave No Trace is a non-profit dedicated to low-impact outdoor recreation (see their blog here). In particular, they work very closely with the National Parks and National Forests to promote low-impact camping techniques. If you’ve done much hiking, chances are that you’ve probably heard one of the slogans associated with Leave No Trace, such as “Pack it in, pack it out”or “Take only photos, leave only footprints.”

The great thing about the idea of “Leave No Trace” is that the specific practices of low impact camping and hiking flow so obviously from their basic principles. The idea is to leave the wilderness the way you found it, and the ways you can do so are myriad, including packing out all of your trash, not feeding wild animals, etc.

(And just a sidenote on Leave No Trace: after reading LNT’s basic principles, you might think these are all no-brainers, but when I was up in the Sierra Nevada wilderness this summer, I witnessed some appalling behavior by fellow campers, including an unwelcome fireworks show - literally, fireworks! - at 10pm on the shores of Garnet Lake during a period of very high fire danger.)

I’ve been thinking about Leave No Trace a lot recently, because what we’re trying to do here at Simple Green Choices is quite closely related, actually. We’re taking this idea of minimum impact and applying it to ALL types of travel… all over the world. With that in mind, let me suggest the following six principles as the core of low-impact travel:

- Reduce Carbon Dioxide Emissions
- Minimize Waste and Recycle
- Help Protect and Preserve in Natural Areas
- Be Culturally Sensitive
- Respect Wildlife and Biodiversity
- Support Local and Environmentally Responsible Businesses

What do you think? Are we missing anything here? If so, post your comment here or e-mail us at simplegreenchoices@gmail.com.

There seems to be no clear, commonly-used label that describes how we can travel in a fashion that minimizes the environmental impact of our travels? Do you know what the difference is between “ecotourism” and “sustainable travel?” What about “zero-carbon” versus “carbon-neutral?”…I certainly wasn’t sure.

I figured the first step toward greening my own travel would be to understand the language and claims of all the glossy brochures and travel websites that I review every time when I’m planning a trip (or researching posts for this blog). With that in mind, we’ve created a little glossary of all these terms, to help us keep them straight.

Ecotourism refers to both the travel practices and the type of destination. It is travel to a natural setting or area of ecological importance that also works to preserve and sustain that ecosystem – both human and natural. The Rainforest Alliance has come up with a more detailed definition. Conservation International also has a whole website devoted to the promotion of responsible ecotourism. One thing to keep in mind about ecotourism is especially susceptible to “greenwashing” issues (see below for definition). If an ecotourist resort or tour operator is talking a good game in terms of being environmentally responsible, but is not properly conserving the land or providing for local communities, that businesses actions are especially harmful, because they are usually operating in a sensitive area. As a traveler, you should educate yourself and do your due diligence when researching companies that claim to be offering “ecotourism” services. Also known as: Ecotravel, ecotours, or anything “eco.”

Sustainable Travel is not limited to natural areas or ecosystems, but travel to ANY destination – urban or rural, coastal or mountainous, developed or undeveloped – that seeks to limit environmental impacts. The concept that defines sustainable travel is minimizing negative impacts when traveling. The UN and others define this as limiting negative impacts on areas both environmentally and socially, while making sure that travel contributes significantly to the local economy (and is not just spirited away by international tourism conglomerates). Also known as: Sustainable tourism, green travel.

Responsible Travel is very similar to the idea of sustainable travel with a bit more emphasis on social impacts and ethical concerns. This framework also emphasizes contributing to the local culture where you’re traveling by spending your dollars with local businesses (hotels, restaurants, etc.) or by possibly volunteering when visiting a developing world destination. A good resource on the web for more about responsible travel is Planeta.com. You can also check out the World Tourism Organizations Code of Ethics for Tourism, which has formalized standards for ethical travel in more detailed (if more convoluted) terms. One of the travel guidebook companies, Lonely Planet, has taken up responsible tourism as a cause and devotes a section of their website to instructing their readers on what they can do. Also known as: Ethical travel.

Carbon-Neutral Travel is an in-vogue term nowadays that refers mainly to the carbon offsetting schemes that have sprung up in recent years. By now you have probably heard of carbon-neutral businesses, movies, events, and households. The idea behind the term “carbon neutral” anything is that you offset the carbon emissions you produce by paying a company to invest in projects that save carbon emissions in another part of the world – for example, through planting trees or funding renewable energy projects in the developing world. For more information on whether you should offset your travel and how, see our section on carbon offsets. However, buying offsets to be carbon-neutral does not, unfortunately, mean that the business or activity you are buying the offset for is being as efficient as possible.

Zero-Carbon Travel is an oxymoron. Unfortunately, there is no way to travel without producing carbon dioxide. The mere act of getting in your car to drive to the airport starts moving the needle on the carbon produced on your trip. Although some people equate “zero-carbon” with “carbon-neutral,” there is a difference. Zero-carbon refers to the aspiration of producing no carbon in the first place. Solar power, for example, is a zero-carbon form of electricity.

Greenwashing is when the environmental claims made by companies in advertising or marketing to consumers do not hold up to close scrutiny. Because of the increased concern for the environment in recent years, “greenwash” has become much more prevalent, with companies exaggerating the environmental benefits of their products and services in order to gain a competitive advantage. Greenwashing is prevalent in the travel industry, with hotels, tour agencies, car rental companies, and many other tourism-related businesses making claims about their environmental policies that are distorted or exaggerated. Part of the reason this is possible is that there are very few organizations monitoring and certifying environmental claims in the travel industry. Greenwashing makes it particularly important for travelers to do their homework and ask lots of questions before booking travel plans such as green hotels or ecotourism resorts. For examples of corporate greenwashing, see the website for Center for Media and Democracy’s Sourcewatch.

Your Carbon Footprint is the amount of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere because of your activities. In the case of travel, most of your carbon footprint is a result of transportation.