Can travel be any more sustainable now, or is it just "back to normal"?

There was a certain point during the pandemic when I kept hearing the whole “the world is healing” thing (of course it became a meme), referring to the positive environmental impact of the pandemic-influenced travel and tourism crash. Now that things are “back to normal”, a lot of people wanted to know if the travel & hospitality industry had actually changed anything. Or, is it just a fact of life that there will always be a conflict between travel and sustainability?

The speakers at this morning’s panel discussion, Joshua Wong , Christoph Meyer , Lucia Loposova and Tsun Tsun Karen Pong , hosted by the AmCham HK E-ESG committee, raised quite a few good points.

One important thing to realize is that customer perceptions don’t always match the materiality of a particular issue, or even with reality. Karen and Christoph agreed that the single biggest priority for the aviation industry is GHG emissions. 3% of global CO2 emissions (down to 2.8% during the pandemic) come from this sector. This is a lot. But consumers rarely ask about this, although they often ask about single-use plastics in-flight, because that's what they can see in front of them while they're on board. Meanwhile, there is a lot going on behind the scenes that the average traveler like me doesn’t see. One of these is the big advances in sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), although the cost is still high (3-8x more expensive, and fuel accounts for about 30% of an airline's cost - you do the math) and supply is uneven. And the newer aircraft are designed to reduce emissions significantly, with very cool innovations like this one (hey, that’s my previous company!).

Meanwhile, hotels might already be doing things that they just don’t want to bother us, the consumers, about. For instance, occasionally customers ask Peninsula why they don’t separate their waste. In fact, they do - just not in the room. The hotel staff separate and recycle the waste, downstairs, out of the way.

All of the speakers adamantly disagreed with cynics who say they are taking these actions just to cut costs.

Another important thing to note in terms of travel impact is that the vastness of the supply chain serving hotels and restaurants, for example luxury hotels, cannot be underestimated. Everything from linens to food to furniture has to be thought through. How can a hotel ensure all of these materials are sustainably sourced? That the products are not produced or transported through modern slavery? The good news, of course, is that more influential brands can and do make a difference with their purchasing power. But beyond this, the hospitality industry exists to connect people, and as a labor intensive industry, its biggest issue is with ensuring that its workforce is responsibly recruited, treated, that they are promoting the local community, etc.?Aviation, too - Cathay is one of the biggest employers in Hong Kong.

Another piece of good news is that luxury travel does not necessarily conflict with sustainability. Consider a funny example - chairs: if a hotel buys a luxury-quality chair, that may also mean that the chair will be durable and long-lasting, and able to be repaired many times, thus significantly reducing waste and saving material. Ultimately, if a chair is expected to stick around long enough to become an antique, that is the most sustainable option and it is also now a luxury item! Likewise, Peninsula hotel customers are finding that plant-based menu options are just as tasty as fancy meat items … at long as they’re cooked by Peninsula chefs, I suppose.

Although I was not surprised to hear about the changes to the travel & hospitality industry that happened during the pandemic (see also: the rise of awful concepts like workcation and bleisure), I was pleasantly surprised to hear that the customer interest kept chugging along - and even increasing - during the past several years. This seems to have been especially true from their corporate customers. The speakers agreed that there has been an “exponential” increase in corporate RFPs that demand sustainability from the airlines and hotels, both in an operational sense as well as a corporate sense, e.g. “Do you report on Scope 3 emissions?” And as the travel industry scrambles to replace all of the staff that were reduced during the pandemic, the new hires are asking about the company’s sustainability practices before they sign on.?

Still, the speakers agreed that when it comes to consumers, people "... just want to travel as they did before."

For those of us who want to reduce our own impact, we are recommended to ask our companies to incorporate sustainability into their travel policies. There are a lot of options now. Cathay is now offering a dashboard, where you can choose newer aircraft, get offsets at the point of purchase, etc. Lufthansa also does offsets as part of the booking flow, and companies can even specify the use of Sustainable Aviation Fuel; Lufthansa will issue a Scope 3 certificate that the company can then use in their own reporting.

Individual efforts do make a difference. Each of us should pack lighter when we travel. We should bring our own reusable items such as cups or bottles, especially since almost all airports now have water refill stations. But consider the flight, too: the items we bring should be lightweight; plastic is often demonized, but its relatively lower weight is quite important to achieve fuel savings. (Cathay has already cut per capita use of single-use plastics by 50%.)?

And, of course - we should educate our colleagues about the topic.

There are still challenges. Obviously cost is one of them, especially looking at SAF; and although the speakers agreed that consumer awareness is high, willingness to pay is another question. So travel businesses in the region that do take up the challenge can end up with a “first-mover disadvantage”. And customers, especially of luxury services, can be slow to change their mindset - honestly, should the standard for a hotel room in a tropical country really be a duvet and a frigid air conditioner? Another is regulatory: for example, although an airplane would seem in theory to be a perfect opportunity for a closed-loop system with biodegradable / compostable plastics, in reality, waste quarantine regulations in various jurisdictions (especially agricultural producing nations) make it difficult to adopt these materials.?

Overall, the mood was definitely much more optimistic than I had imagined. In particular, it was great to see a little glimpse into the future: LH brand Swiss is now working on the first so-called “solar fuel” - also known as “sun to liquid” - with Synhelion. I will be very interested to see how this pans out.