To me, the bottom line is using the term “Green” now implies an entire political agenda, which in the end may do more harm than good. As opposed to pitching “conservation” “leave no trace” or even “eco-friendly travel”, Green proponents ultimate goal is to reduce/eliminate long distance travel altogether. Ask one. They’ll tell you airplanes are THE #1 cause of C02 emissions (see the movie “The Age of Stupid”). Don’t fly. Cars, buses, cruise ships — all massive C02 emitters. So, stay home, don’t travel. Save the Earth. It ends up that Green marketing for travel is almost all “greenwashing” – the middle ground of “conservation” (which is what most resorts are practicing and should be anyway) will never be enough. Instead of jumping on the current political/marketing bandwagon, why don’t we look at what good travel can do for the global community and support conservation practices while supporting scientific advances that might make future travel less “environmentally impactive.” Otherwise, stay home, ride a horse (or hike) and enjoy the silence of a plane-free sky.

Greenswashing is found in every aspect of sustainability. Any time you have companies evaluating sustainability for profit you are going to get greenwashing, spin, and lies in the name of PR.

The key is get evaluations from Non profit organizations. a Great example is USO14001 manufacturing. It cost $200,000 usd to get certification. This is a multi-billion dollar business.

Bio- Fuels are a nother badly misunderstood notion. People rave about the fuels made from Corn, but all we are doing is using more fossil fuel.

How much gas and oil do the tractors use to cut the corn? How about the trucks used to drive the corn to market? How about the machinese use to process the corn?

Sadly the use of corn causes serious problems with our agricultural business in our country. Farms stop producing unprofitable vegatables in place of corn which they sell for oil consumption…….

Much better to show me reasonable ways to conserve energy and be more efficient.

There has been a lot written about Sustainability, mainly in the context of Climate Change. This writing ranges from advocating a return to a pre-literate Stone Age hunter gather society to a ‘hair-shirt’ return to the Middle Ages and on to a Panglossian view that there is absolutely nothing to worry about. The debate is clouded by whether one is a climate change believer or a climate change sceptic.

Lip Service Sustainability-This is where many businesses are currently placed.

This is the hotel chain that places the ‘lip service’ card in the bathroom. The card suggests that you can help lessen the load on the environment by hanging up towels to be used a second time. When you do this, the housekeeping staff replaces them anyway because there are no systems in place to ensure staff compliance with the ‘policy’.

This is the business that has a general purpose paper recycling bin but no systems to ensure the paper is picked up and sent to the recycler.
Or the business that has a policy to recycle toner cartridges and then has no system to make it easy and wonders why empty toner cartridges end up in the waste bin.

We all can do better!

But, why look at the airlines. They consume about 2.5% of the oil energy. What kind of vehicle are people driving. Gas guzzlers pick up trucks or 2 ton four wheel drive cars for city driving. No public transport system in many US cities. Instead of developing public transport systems, governments just build more highways. Look at Los Angeles. It is only when the cost of fuel doubles from what it is now that people will start paying attention. BTW, the cost of fuel in Europe is twice what it is in America. This is the reason Europeans drive in most cases smaller cars.

No point having a volunteer system to make one feel good; just double the price of fuel by increasing taxes and let the big users pay for the pollution.

Look, I want and NEED adequate lighting. I promise to turn the darn lights off when I leave – do I have to start bringing my own light bulbs on trips now too?