By Georgia Muir
MSN NZ Travel writer
Travelling can often mean exploiting the local community you are visiting — often without you even realising it. Scooting around on a motorbike, jet skiing on a pristine island, lounging on a sun bed at a popular beach resort and indulging in fast food when you've simply had it with local cuisine are all contributors to your carbon footprint.
So how do we travel with a social and environmental conscious, without compromising our hard-earned holiday?
Lonely Planet defines responsible tourism as "Travel that takes into consideration the triple bottom line — environmental, socio-cultural and economic factors."
This suggests a pensive green traveller will roam the world with a heightened awareness of the possible ramifications of their every action. This includes choosing green tour operators, opting for methods of transport that have less impact on the environment and being aware of how to minimise water and packaging waste while on the road.
Green tour operators
If you're planning to jump on a tour, check the company has a responsible travel policy. This is usually very easy to identify, because every environmentally aware vendor will brag about it.
By checking the claims on their website and in their brochures you can find this information, and if you're not 100 percent convinced, simply give them a call and ask some questions.
- What impact does the itinerary have on the local environment and communities?
- Do you employ local guides?
- How big are your tour groups? (The smaller the group, the less impact you'll make.)
Transportation
Air travel has the highest environmental impact of any form of motorised transport and it's increasing due to more affordable flights. According to ResponsibleTravel.com, the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by air travel doubled between 1990 and 2004 and has not tapered off.
Logistically, air travel is essential for commuting long distances but if you can find an alternative for short distances, such as train, bus or car pooling, the environment will thank you for it.
If there is no alternative, choosing to pay a levy to fly "carbon neutral" helps. While it doesn't reduce emissions directly, it does fund projects that counterbalance the emissions from your share of a flight. Your money will be used for environmentally sustainable initiatives, such as reforestation, investment in solar energy and research into renewable energy.
Hotels
Washing. Hotels produce loads of waste because travellers usually only stay a few nights at a time. This means piles of washing for bedding, linen and towels, as well as constant cleaning of rooms, bathrooms and common facilities.
You can't avoid that, but you can choose not to request clean linen, towels and your room cleaned everyday. It does feel decadent to hop into crisp linen or dry off with a fluffy new towel every night but the environmental impact for the load of washing is hard to justify when you've only used them once.
Water. Short showers help reduce water wastage. It is crucial to preserve water in all parts of the world, especially in developing nations where water is an exceptionally scarce resource.
Eating
Eating out. When you're on the run, it's easy to grab snacks and meals on the fly but it's much better for the environment to eat in a restaurant or cafe than to get takeaway meals. Eating in produces much less waste in terms of paper bags, takeaway plastic and cardboard cups. Another benefit is, you can slow down the pace of your holiday and participate in the local culture.
We all have the odd craving for Western food when we're away, but think twice before you walk into a global food chain. Pumping money back into global food chains means that local businesses miss out. Local farmers, truck drivers, packaging suppliers and anyone else involved in the supply chain is left without employment if your money isn't spent locally. So remember, eating at a local family pizzeria in Sicily or a noodle bar in Hong Kong keeps local people employed.
Eating in. Supermarkets in Europe and the UK are starting to introduce carbon labelling on their product lines. A carbon label indicates how many grams of carbon or equivalent greenhouse gases were emitted as a result of growing, manufacturing, transporting, storing and disposing the product. By choosing to buy low-carbon rated products, you are helping these brands get restocked onto supermarket shelves and are therefore investing in a more sustainable future.
Packaging and paper
Wandering the aisles at a tourist information centre presents the temptation of picking up every glossy catalogue and map you can stuff in your bag. Chances are you'll quickly flick through them and then throw them out, so consider the environment and only take what you need.
