Climate change negotiators meet in Bonn, Germany, this week ahead of the next major UN Conference on Climate Change due to be held in Durban in November.
The 17th annual event of its kind prefaces the worldwide interest in climate change, sustainability and ‘going green’. The conference attracts global media attention as well as its share of protests aimed at what some call a lack of decisive and meaningful global action. While global leadership may, arguably, be dragging its feet, private enterprises have begun to pay unprecedented attention to the issues. The tourism industry in South Africa is no exception.
With the rise in consumer demand for environmentally sound and sustainable tourism products so too has the prevalence of ‘greenwashing’. MD of The Heritage Environmental Management Company, Greg McManus, says that greenwashing is the process by which a business makes claims of environmental responsibility without being able to verify the claims or which claims are based on untested opinions. “In the tourism sector, being seen as more environmentally responsible has become a significant differentiator in what is now a highly competitive industry and while it is not a particularly new concept, it has the potential to damage the credibility of this region unless something is done about some of the claims being made.”
Words like green, organic, carbon neutral, eco-friendly and sustainable have gone from being buzzwords to serious affirmations of an organisation’s commitment to the environment. While the words may be commonplace, far less common is a universal understanding of them. Says Jennifer Seif, Executive Director Fair Trade Tourism South Africa (FTTSA): “‘Green’ is often poorly understood and equated in a very simplistic manner with planting a few trees, not washing towels and printing brochures on recycled paper. Everyone has to start somewhere, however businesses doing the bare minimum may therefore in all good faith consider themselves to be green.”
William Ford, Protea Hospitality Group Operations Director, agrees: “The industry is still trying to figure out exactly what ‘green’ means. The Protea Hospitality Group has set itself the goal of 2015 to become carbon neutral and sustainability policies are in place across the group. Initiatives need to be practical and economical to implement in order for them to be sustainable.”
While there may be some unintentional ignorance on the issue, both McManus and Seif agree that some of the blame can be placed at the door of marketing, promotions and PR within organisations which, according to Seif, have a tendency to over-sell the ‘green’ credentials of an operation. Says McManus: “There are a growing number of businesses that make environmentally irresponsible claims of compliance which clearly have no idea what constitutes responsible tourism practice, and the recent Indaba in Durban reflected this trend not only by the accommodation sector but also companies in vehicle hire, transport, tour operators and other service providers.”
To eliminate greenwashing, Chris van Zyl, Group Environmental Manager for the Petousis properties, which include the Vineyard Hotel & Spa, believes that legitimate businesses will happily display their environmental policies and certification. McManus believes that an important step in curbing greenwashing is to ‘out’ companies that abuse the terms ‘green’ and ‘responsible’ and to lodge complaints with the Advertising Standards Authority or the Consumer Protection Council.
Says Andrew Phillips, Programme Director of Greenleaf: “Integrity of a certification scheme and the competency of the technical experts within the certification scheme are critical to the success of eradicating ‘greenwashing’ and instilling ethical economic, environmental and social business best practice and symbols/labels.”
Seif believes that greater awareness in the industry is key to eliminating misleading claims. She says the tourism industry in South Africa will soon be able to rate the credentials of tourism certification organisations like Heritage, Greenleaf and FTTSA. “These organisations will be able to apply for endorsement both nationally, by the National Department of Tourism (NDT) and internationally by the Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC) – and the good news is that NDT is working to integrate the two systems to avoid duplication of work. NDT/GSTC accreditation will signal to the industry that the certification body is competent and that its programme is sufficiently aligned to internationally and nationally accepted standards and criteria. In future tourism businesses seeking a sustainability stamp of approval should insist that service providers carry GSTC and NDT endorsement.”
In the meantime, McManus says greenwashing is a problem that poses very real threats to South Africa’s future tourism strategy as well as to the region as a whole.
Do you think greenwashing is widespread? Should businesses guilty of it be ‘outed’? Let us know by leaving your comments below…
