Greenwash

1 July 2010

It has become trendy to have a page on “the website” to explain just how clean and green the company you are holidaying with is going to be.  So I thought we should have a similar page.

Power saving:  Going green makes sense when it’s just about saving energy.  We work from home (no wasted energy costs on building and climate controlling an office, no commuting energy costs).  Our home office has no air-conditioning and uses a wood fire (now considered a carbon friendly rather than polluting source of power).  We also have our servers hosted in efficient large farms.  Do we do this to save costs or because it’s a green image? You decide.

Flying halfway round the world does very little for your carbon footprint and makes a mockery of the other energy savings.  We book economy seats on planes with high load factors.  It’s cheaper and less comfortable, but you’re doing less to destroy the planet than flying business class.   While it’s trendy to offer carbon credits as a voluntary offset payment, I have little faith in the effectiveness of ETS and won’t be doing this.  Salvage your conscience by planting trees somewhere or better still, get active and campaign for the government to implement an effective mix of tax, research and investment that reduces our oil dependence.

We like to work with small local operators in the countries we visit.    This means more of the payments find their way to the communities we visit, the experience is more personal and we get more control over trip content and a greater involvement with local communities.  They are also often cheaper than the big boys.

Many of our trips are to developing nations and it would be nice to be doing more to help the people we meet catch up with the west.  But even better progress happens when our travellers make long term friendships with people in our host countries.  It does more to break down cultural barriers and create international understanding than a small conscience easing donation. 

International travel is not a carbon friendly activity.  It’s also a luxury that only a very small percentage of the world’s population can afford.   But travel can make us better world citizens, able to see the world as full of people of equal ability and unequal opportunity.  Use you privilege as one of the worlds “wealthy” to travel wisely.