Green travel ideas from two environmentally conscious travelers

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.

Now that Yen has explained a bit about the ground that we’re hoping to cover with SimpleGreenChoices.com, I want to start my own participation on this blog with an assumption that I think we all can agree on: our travel has a profound impact on our lives and the world around us.

Some of the impacts are overwhelmingly positive. We escape from the stress of our daily lives and get to experience a new place with fresh eyes or settle into the comfortable routine of an old familiar haunt. Sometimes we go to experience another culture or learn more about the natural world, or even to teach our kids about their world and expand their horizons. Our interactions with others from different cultures and places helps to foster cultural understanding and make the world a better place. And the dollars that we spend on our vacations can help to sustain local communities and protect the world’s most beautiful places. Travel even keeps our global economy running, accounting for $7 trillion in spending in 2007 alone and more than 10% of the world’s economy, according to the World Travel and Tourism Council.

But our travel can also have a negative impact. Car and plane emissions account for a disproportionate percentage of the global carbon dioxide emissions that are warming our planet (and potentially threatening the very destinations we travel to). Many people alter their habits and produce more waste on their vacation either because of the circumstances or out of a relaxation of their normal environmentally conscious habits. Although tourism development and growth can benefit communities and natural resources, it can also tax them. If development is not done in a sustainable way, the cultural and natural heritage of a magical place can be lost in all the bustle of tourists coming to see those very resources.

In other words, travel is a double-edged sword, and the amazing power of those $7 trillion spent by travelers every year hangs in the balance every time you and I are on the road spending them one by one (sometimes faster than we would like…).

As Yen said, our goal is to consolidate all the best and most useful knowledge on improving the environmental impact of travel to enable you to make smarter, more sustainable decisions every time you set foot outside your neighborhood.

But before we get into the details over the upcoming weeks and months, I think it’s worth us all stopping to consider our own travels up to this point. Is your net impact a positive one and why?

I believe that climate change and other forms of environmental harm are occurring largely because of us (“us” being the 5 billion humans) and I believe that, collectively, we can make a difference by individually making simple, aff ordable, hopefully even convenient, everyday decisions. But I am more then a little unsure about what those simple, everyday choices are, and neither asking friends nor searching the web has helped me find unbiased sources which help me understand my options in layman’s terms. It’s not always easy to “do the right thing”, but I know I can certainly do more if I better understand what everyday behaviors I can change to most significantly reduce my environmental footprint while also balancing my own personal needs and preferences.

That’s the purpose of this blog. Not to evangelize or to convince. But to *try* to help ordinary consumers like you and me to understand our options so we can make informed choices.

So, what do I know about identifying and making sustainable choices? At this point, no more then the average consumer. But I’m passionate about the topic of minimizing my negative impact on our environment by doing little things that might add up to something bigger, and I thought to leverage my experience in leisure travel as a way to begin. Oh, and I found a partner, Tom Mercer who is as experienced in travel, is a better writer, and even more committed to the environmental sector.

Of course, for most of us, only in an ideal world is travel truly an everyday choice, but it’s what Tom and I know best, and it’s where we can meld our passions for travel and the environment. And as we invest to research, distill and share information to help us make informed choices, we hope to invite experts in other domains to expand our expertise and the breadth of topics we cover here at www.SimpleGreenChoices.com.

This blog isn’t about Tom and I. It’s about how we can all do little simple things and it’s about us all participating and discussing how we can accomplish this. So, please share your comments and reactions; your suggestions on other topics that deserve our analysis; introduce us to experts to invite to post here; and post directly yourself.

Let’s begin the journey together toward understanding and making the simple green choices that balance sustainability with our realistic needs and constraints!