Greenwashed! How to spot the travel industry's eco-lies

[sparky]

Lofty promises made by airlines peddling gimmicky carbon offsets, resorts hawking convoluted green initiatives and companies with shiny new fleets of high-maintenance cars to rent.

Greenwashed! How to spot the travel industry's eco-lies - CNN.com

[annabelt]

Thanks for posting this, it's got a lot of suggestions for how to be more discriminating. Ok so a lot of this promotional stuff may be greenwash or just presenting money saving practices in a 'green' light. But isn't it at least a good sign that the travel industry has noticed people care about that, and hopefully this green promotional stuff will put the idea into more people's minds that they really do care about it? Then hopefully things could progress to them genuinely trying to be more green than each other - I think the article mentioned a couple of airlines that were genuinely trying to be more green. I hope there can be some beneficial compromise before a resort like Universal Studios has to be levelled to the ground and covered with trees to prove it's green (as suggested!)

[macgardener]

Thanks for the link. Interesting article.
I did think this comment seemed a bit harsh. "So you're washing fewer towels? Good for you. That's not saving the planet -- it's saving you money." Can't it be doing both? At least it's a start, although I think we have a lot of progress to make before eco-travel, indeed eco-anything, becomes a genuine way of doing things instead of just a flavour of the month marketing gimmick. We as consumers need to make these eco-claims count for something!