'You teach me, I forget. You show me, I remember. You involve me, I understand.’
EO Wilson (1929—2021)
Father of biodiversity and founder of Half-Earth Project
100 Eco Resolutions in Condé Nast Traveller
Never underestimate the power we wield as individuals to help make the world a better place through sustainable travel and everyday habits. In 2022, let’s not only be better travellers and make every trip count, let’s strive to be better global citizens.
What we really need more of is less
Let’s be real, using a nice organic deodorant ain’t gonna support decarbonisation to the level that flying less or switching to a green energy supplier will. Truth is, we can’t conscious-consumer our way out of the climate emergency, we need change at an industry and government level — but we all have to start somewhere. Greening up our finances is one of the biggest improvements we can make. As a CLG, Bouteco is fully transparent around our transactions — we bank with Triodos and our accountants, GSM & Co are the best-respected for their ethics. We value investment advice from Pensions4Purpose and our preferred insurer is Naturesave.
Catch up on which travel companies have done most to deserve your hard-earned cash, find out how to reduce your carbon footprint from the flight you really have to take or stay somewhere that celebrates walking the talk. You’ll also find hacks for greening your home life, from teeth-cleaning to laundering www.cntraveller.com/gallery/travel-resolutions-2021
Goodbye 2021, hello 19,842 trees (and counting)
Google is seeing a +500% increase in searches for “what is sustainable tourism” of late — things are looking up! Whatever 2022 decides to throw at us, we're eager to hit our target to plant 25,000 trees through our chosen charity TreeSisters.
If you can, we’d love you to help us over the line by supporting their social-impact reforestation projects, here.
Bouteco is a non-profit organisation. Our platform exists to amplify stories of sustainability and support the industry in cutting through the greenwash. We work with leaders in sustainable travel to sharpen their practices, focus their energies and better communicate their credentials. We recommend special places to stay, not because they pay us to, or because it earns us commission, but because we know you’ll love them, and by you being there, your travels will do good. (Folks have told us they’d love to be able to click to book, so we are considering adding affiliate links with businesses we trust.)
Bouteco Loves — the very best sustainable luxury and boutique eco-hotels
Bursting with inspiration and growing all the time, we’ve added lots of new hotels to take our collection into triple digits.
Whether you’re a seasoned campaigner, an expert travel agent or a sustainable tourism newbie, please consider this list your go-to for independent recommendations.
If you like what you see, we’d be over the moon if you’d share it with someone you love by sending them a link. We’ve got you (and them) covered with everything from positive-impact beach hideaways to community-loving city slickers.
An A—Z of Soneva’s Sustainability
Bouteco exists to spotlight stories of true sustainability in luxury travel. One of our favourite parts of working with change-making hotels as communications consultants and strategists, is creating A to Z glossaries of their eco-activism.
We’ve loved languaging positive impact in this way for hotels with big hearts such as Aman and Salt Mauritius – some of the clients for whom we've been creating a dazzling dictionary and eco encyclopediae since 2017.
We've especially loved communicating the next-level work of Soneva, Bouteco supporter and a superstar of our Bouteco Loves collection of the world’s leading sustainable luxury escapes, so we thought we’d share a taster of their epic achievements.
Our #BoutecoWorldStories series continues
Postcards that share tales from each country one at a time on Instagram — most recently Slovenia, Madagascar, Iraq, Bolivia and Belgium. You can also catch up with our dispatches on Bouteco.co.
WORTH magazine explains a better kind of capitalism
Conscious capitalism, the Paris Agreement and COVID are fuelling the ESG boom. If the time has come to invest more responsibly, how best to do this? And why does all this talk about Environmental, Social, Governance matter so much?
www.worth.com
Have you read The Green Edit: Travel (Ebury) yet?
A pocket-sized book packed with practical advice, ‘The Green Edit: Travel (Easy Tips for the Eco-Friendly Traveller)’ demystifies sustainable travel and offers straightforward steps anyone can take towards reducing their impact on the world without giving up the experiences that make life so rich.
As elemental to backpackers as luxury-lovers as international hoteliers or tourist board marketers. Purchase from Book Depository and there's free worldwide delivery and no minimum spend. None of us are perfect all the time, but collectively the small changes we make as individuals really can have a positive global impact.
Why being a better guest goes a long way
Discover some of the reasons it’s better for everyone if us travellers make an effort beyond expecting our hosts to do all the hard work. This topic’s all the more poignant by post-pandemic protocols and the extra challenges now in the mix for hoteliers striving to deliver the best service — here's how to improve hospitality for all.
Chat to the concierge or general managers about how hard it’s been to run their businesses over the last couple of years, and it may just bring tears to your eyes. Luckily, most guests are a delight – but occasionally even the most demure among us could benefit from an insider’s etiquette lesson. www.cntraveller.com/article/how-to-be-a-good-hotel-guest
The most sustainable destinations in the world?
Whether powering their nations on renewables, or addressing specific environmental or community issues, these nations are making the planet a better place or in the case of Madagascar will especially benefit from us exploring in an eco-friendly way. www.cntraveller.com
Coming soon… We’re excited for Weeva.
This game-changing sustainability platform launching in 2022 is seeking a Digital Editor.
www.instagram.com/p/CYEeX32prPp/
Don’t miss… The Green Planet with Sir David Attenborough
Tune into nature with a little plant porn from the BBC. Who knew watching cacti, corpse flowers and glow-in-the-dark fungi could be so exhilarating. Watch the trailer.
https://www.bbcearth.com/shows/the-green-planet
We hope these tips are helpful — we don’t profit from plugging these brands. Please share if you have a friend who might enjoy our occasional newsletters and help spread sustainable travel messages that matter.