Green travel ideas from two environmentally conscious travelers

The question at hand is: if I’m an environmentally conscious traveler, should I stay at a Hilton or a Marriott? Just to remind you that the idea here is that as a traveler, you wield an considerable amount of power with your wallet, so how should you use that power if you want to choose based on environmental issues?

(Before I get into the meat of this post, let me offer a disclaimer. I cannot possibly know all of the environmental initiatives and programs going on at each hotel. I also cannot measure what the hotels’ baselines are in terms of energy use, water use, pollution, etc. I cannot tell you whether one hotel has followed through on their environmental initiatives and the other hasn’t. I wish all that data were available at my fingertips, but it’s not. Until we have a lodging certification system that allows for consistent audits across all properties, we’ll never be able to measure hotels accurately against one another.

Well, you might ask: what do you know? What I know is what Hilton and Marriott have published on their website–their public commitments to environmental values and programs. I have to take them at their word that they are executing these programs, and I have to assume that we, the public, will hold them accountable. I would suggest that if you stay in a Marriott or a Hilton, ask about these programs and what the location you’re staying in has done with regard to them.

And please check out Hilton and Marriott’s webpages on environmental programs and stewardship on your own. See if you agree with my judgment.

Hilton
So, what is Hilton doing? Here is a boiled-down list of their main environmental initiatives.

• Nearly every Hilton hotel (including Hilton, Hilton Garden, DoubleTree, Hampton Inn, and Homewood Suites) participates in the “Green Program”–which means that guests are given the option of reusing towels. Apparently, this program saves 12 million gallons of fresh water annually.
• Hilton says that it implemented a “corporate-wide” initiative to retrofit rooms with CFL lightbulbs - reducing room wattage from 750 to 220 Watts. It’s unclear, though, how many rooms have been retrofitted, though, and from the numbers, it’s obvious that it does not incorporate every hotel–or even nearly that number.
• Hilton seems to have explored how an individual hotel’s recycling program could work and printed their findings in corporate manuals, but there is no mandate for any hotel manager to implement this program. Also, they are currently EXAMINING in-room recycling options (no action yet on the corporate level).
• The hotel chain has instituted HER (Hilton Environmental Reporting) system, which seems to be a piece of software that allows managers to benchmark their environmental performance and report to corporate. This system was instituted in 2004 and none of the information has been made public in any comprehensive way.
• In the UK and Ireland, Hilton Hotels get 100% of their electricity from renewable sources.
• In the UK and Ireland, Hilton initiated a 15,000-person strong task force to tackle environmental issues, which they say led to 780 specific actions. Unfortunately, none of these actions are named.
• In September 2003, 400 Hilton hotels across the world participated in Environmental Action Month, where each of the local branches did something to ameliorate its environmental impact, and they published examples on their website.
• In November, Hilton Garden Hotels (a subset of Hiltons) announced that they would be phasing out use of styrofoam cups in favor of paper and corn based “ecotainers.” They’re compostable, which begs the question: has Hilton instituted a composting program?
• Way back in the late 1990s, Hilton conducted an energy reduction program in 14 of their European hotels and since then “several more hotels were given the go-ahead for audit and improvement programmes.”

Bottom Line: In North America, Hilton’s main approach has been to allow individual properties and managers to take action on environmental issues if they so choose. It’s nice that they reuse linens and save freshwater, but there’s a lot more that can be done. The UK and Europe seem to be taking more action, but on the whole, count me unimpressed.

Marriott
What is Marriott doing about the environment? We saw earlier in the week that they have a high opinion of their efforts thus far, while also acknowledging there is a lot left to do:

• They have a BUZZWORD! ECHO (Environmentally Conscious Hospitality Operators) is the name they’ve given to their green initiatives.
• Headquarters Initiatives: they’ve replaced plastic utensils with spudware, given premium parking spaces to hybrid drivers, and made reusable mugs available. This feels pretty week.
• Their energy- and water-efficient laundry facility in Washington D.C. serves six locations and saves 3.5 million gallons of water annually just on its own! (Compared to 12 million gallons for Hilton’s whole towel reuse program.)
• They’re building the first LEED-certified hotel in Baltimore, a Fairfield Inn that will open in 2009. They built the chain’s first LEED-certified hotel in Adelphi, Maryland.
• The company has led a whole smorgasbord of energy- and resource-saving initiatives, including: replacing 4,500 outdoor signs with LED displays, replacing 450,000 light-bulbs with CFLs in 2006, saving 11-17 percent on their water usage through linen reuse programs, and installing 400,000 low-flow shower heads (which each save 10% on hot water use per year)
• 96% of Marriott’s hotels recycle in some form. Of course, there’s no quantification here, but it’s an area they say they’re working on. We’ll see.
• Most impressively, Marriott is a member of the EPA’s Climate Leaders program, and they’ve committed to reducing their energy use 6% per guest room in the period from 2005 to 2010. This is a modest but quantifiable step toward reducing energy use.
• Marriott has received more EnergySTAR labels than any other company (160) and for this, won the EPA’s 2007 Energy Star “Sustained Excellence” award.

Bottom Line: Many of Marriott’s environmental initiatives also rely on the actions of local property managers. However, Marriott has created incentive systems to award and highlight managers for their environmental iniatives. And on a corporate level, they are taking MEASURABLE steps toward reducing their energy and water use. Next step: waste reduction. We’ll see how they do there.

The winnner is… MARRIOTT

The result here isn’t in doubt. If you want to make the Hilton/Marriott decision based on environmental factors, choose Marriott. Based on the information available, there is no doubt in my mind that Marriott has more active and committed programs to reduce their environmental impact. They’ve also worked to earn many more EPA endorsements for their efforts than Hilton. To be frank, though, I’d like to see both of these chains take a more integrated approach to their environmental impact.

Have you had an experience at a Marriott or Hilton that you’d like to share? Please comment or send us an e-mail at simplegreenchoices@gmail.com.

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.

At some point, we’ll address the carbon economics (and benefits) of driving versus flying. But for now, let’s assume you’ve chosen to fly—either because it’s convenient or because it’s the only way to get where you’re going. That shouldn’t be the end of your decision-making process. If you want to reduce your flights’ environmental impact, consider the following tips when booking:

Minimize connections: Most of the fuel used up during a flight is burned during takeoff and landing, so it stands to reason that the more connections you make, the more emissions will be produced on your behalf. Try to book a non-stop flight if possible, which will save you the hassle of layovers, as well.

Fly during the day: Studies have shown that the greenhouse effects of airplane emissions are twice as bad at night than during the day. Again, in this case, environmental concerns may overlap with convenience, since many people prefer to fly during the day anyway.

Offset your emissions: When you do fly, research carbon offset schemes and consider offsetting your plane’s emissions. It’s not a silver bullet, since the atmosphere would be better off if you didn’t fly at all, but it’s better than doing nothing.

Choose airlines based on their performance and environmental commitments: Use your purchasing power to show the airlines that their environmental policies matter to you. For example, Southwest Airlines is one of the few airlines that offers incentives for its flight attendants and cleaning crews to recycle cans and bottles. Continental Airlines was commended by Fortune magazine in 2007 for their energy-efficiency initiatives. In Britain, there is even more competition between airlines to be considered the “greenest.” Virgin Atlantic’s Chairman, Richard Branson, is famous for drumming up celebrity attention for climate change, and Virgin recently announced an upgrade in their fleet and a research program on biofuels for aviation. Easyjet, Ryanair, and British Airways have also been promoting their environmental initiatives

Fly in newer, larger, and more fuel-efficient planes: It’s almost an ironclad rule that newer planes are more fuel efficient. The new Boeing 787 Dreamliner promises to be an industry leader when it hits the market, but in the current fleet, the 777, 747-400, and A330 are the most fuel-efficient planes. Call and ask the airline what planes they have flying the route that you are booking.

Ask lots of questions – generate “consumer pressure”: The environmental issue that airlines are most concerned about is their profits. That is to say that if airlines start to worry about losing customers over their environmental inaction, they will act. As a consumer, you can make a real difference by asking questions of everyone at the airline to generate pressure that will resonate up to the boardroom. Ask whether they recycle, what their environmental policy is, and how fuel-efficient their planes are. And if you don’t get satisfactory answers, switch airlines.

For more tips: See Time Magazine and The Observer.