Greenwashing

Greenwashing means groundless, misleading or exaggerated claims about offers. All companies that can be identified as making misleading environmental claims, introduce and promote products, services or organisation’s policies as environmentally friendly to mislead the consumers in order to gain profit. In tourism industry, the term is mostly popular among accommodation providers and various tour operators.

The word greenwashing was coined in 1986 by an American environmentalist, Jay Westerveld, who, in his article criticised hotel businesses of placing notices in hotel bathrooms which asked their guests to reuse towels and claimed that they did it in order to save the environment, whereas in fact they did it to reduce costs and subsequently increase profits. The term is now commonly used for commercial practices, where companies spend more money and energy in claiming and advertising how green they are, as opposed to the money and energy they actually spend for actual environmental activities. Companies intensively develop green products. The term green is becoming the main marketing tool for many companies in all sectors, even in tourism. Major hotel chains advertise their eco-friendliness. Tourist service providers add green colour to their logos. Greenwashing feeds on our culture that often doesn’t pay much attention to the content and simply prefers to take a quick glance at the appearance thereof.

Over recent years, many travel service providers have written down the word green in their strategies to gain new customers. This makes distinguishing between providers, which are truly sustainable, and those, that only take advantage of the label. The first indication that the company is not actually eco-friendly is the exaggerated advertising of its sustainability without any real evidence of its offers supporting that claim. Misleading travellers is particularly popular, especially when companies promote safari tours as beneficial to conserving wildlife, when in fact that isn’t necessarily true.

Wildlife sanctuaries, such as those with elephants, tigers or monkey, can be unsustainable. The animals don’t have to ever be released into the wild, but what is important is that these sanctuaries resemble the natural environment as much as possible and the natural environment must not be destroyed. One can easily discern the organisation’s good intentions from its website. If the organisation mentions its projects and its partnership with other organisations, then that is certainly a good sign. Organisations often lists their actual achievements, such as the number of animals that were released into the wild. If the organisation mentions that it used to work with an environmental organisation in the past or lists all its achievements in animal conservation, then that’s undoubtedly a good sign. But if it only states that it plans on doing something in the future, then that means nothing. What is important is the communication between us and the organisation. It’s suspicious if the organisation reacts aggressively. If you really want to make sure your visit will have a positive impact on the environment and will contribute to the local community, you should present the organisation with a couple of simple questions and enquire about its missions and how it actually manages its funds. You can also learn a lot if you enquire about how it helps reduce massive tourism. And if you see advertising stating how massive tourism helps the local community, simply ask the organisation how many locals it employs, where it buys products, and what fundraising events it organises. In the end, you have to realise that animal watching boats trips seriously threatens marine wildlife as well.

You can easily tell the actual sustainable service providers from the ones that are not. The easiest way to do that is by looking for proper labels. Let me first introduce sustainable labels. Green Globe is a certificate for hotels, resorts and travel service operators. It’s includes 44 core criteria supported by 380 compliance indicators and covers sustainable management, society, cultural heritage, and environment. Green Key is the standard for excellence and sustainable business in hotels, hostels, camps, restaurants, and other attractions. It encompasses a wide range of criteria, such as water, waste and energy management, as well as green areas, transports, and travel. Travelife is a certified label of sustainability for accommodation containing 163 criteria encompassing environment, supply chain, human rights and the overall the whole environment and supply chain area. Then there are also ecolabels. The best known is probably the EU Ecolabel that unites all eco-friendly accommodation, from hostels to mountain cabins. One of the important criteria includes the sustainable use of energy and water, the reduction of waste, and providing information to guests. Another ecolabel that is dedicated to environment protection and safe and quality camping is ECOCAMPING. Among one of the strictest certificates is the BIO HOTELS certificate, ensuring sustainability in everything, from accommodation to food and drinks. It also ensures high energy standards and the use of recycled paper and natural cleaning products. Protected areas also have their own labels, namely the European Charter for Sustainable Tourism in Protected Areas and the Man and the Biosphere Programme, focusing on nature protection and sustainable development. You can pay closer attention to detail when checking whether a hostel, which uses solar energy to heat water, also has a water management plan. The journey of an item of food before reaching the consumer is also important. If eco-friendly food comes from distant countries, that means it probably isn’t that much eco-friendly to begin with.

The acquisition of a sustainable or ecolabel, and consequently the advertising of having one, requires more than just having your own garden or not picking up towels. It’s requires an integrated management. When staying at a so-called eco-friendly accommodation, you can quickly come across single-use plastic. An organisation can be labelled as ever so sustainable, but if just one of its practices is harmful to the environment, then labelling it as sustainable is wrong.

The avoidance of greenwashing starts before setting out on a trip by reading and doing some research. But don’t let this article deter you from enjoying the genuine sustainable offers.