Sustainable Approach and Practice on Environmental Management and Carbon Emission Reduction in the Tourism Industry

Abstract

Sustainability is using resources in a way and at a rate that enables the current generation to meet their needs and desires without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs and desires. It is all about balance of environmental, economic and social benefit. Tourism industry has high reliance on natural and cultural assets and is vulnerable to climate change impacts. This paper introduces a holistic approach to environmental management and carbon emission reduction with practical application in the tourism industry by EarthCheck program. The approach which includes quantitative benchmarking and qualitative assessment is well implemented in a broad industry scale to help tourism business start their sustainable journey.

Full text

Sustainable Approach and Practice on Environmental Management and
Carbon Emission Reduction in the Tourism Industry
Yan Ke ¹,a, Peiyi Ding 2,b, Peiyu Ren3,c
1 Regional director of EarthCheck Pty Ltd，PO Box 12149，George Street，Queensland 4003，
Australia
2 School of Tourism，The University of Queensland，St. Lucia, Qld 4072，Australia
3Business School of Sichuan University, Chengdu, 610065, China
a yan.ke@earthcheck.org, b p.ding@uq.edu.au, crenpy.scu@163.com
Keywords: sustainability; carbon emission; environmental management; tourism industry;
benchmarking; EarthCheck
Abstract. Sustainability is using resources in a way and at a rate that enables the current generation to
meet their needs and desires without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own
needs and desires. It is all about balance of environmental, economic and social benefit. Tourism
industry has high reliance on natural and cultural assets and is vulnerable to climate change impacts.
This paper introduces a holistic approach to environmental management and carbon emission
reduction with practical application in the tourism industry by EarthCheck program. The approach
which includes quantitative benchmarking and qualitative assessment is well implemented in a broad
industry scale to help tourism business start their sustainable journey.
Introduction
In the past 40 years, the world's energy consumption has almost tripled and coming with it is large
volume of greenhouse gas emissions from combustion of fossil fuel. According to a report released by
the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the greenhouse gas emissions produced by
human activities have increased by 70% since 1970s, resulted in global warming issues [3]. In 2050,
the global climate may rise 1.4 to 5.8°C due to the greenhouse gas emissions caused by energy
consumption (Chefurka, 2008 )[1]. The effect of this temperature change will have profound impact
on the global climate and increasing occurrence of extreme whether disasters such as hurricanes,
tropical storms, drought and flood will be major threat to human beings.
Beside energy pressure, freshwater is also a concern worldwide. In the past 50 years, water
consumption has quadrupled and by 2025 there will be more than half of the population facing the
problem of water shortage. Waste is another problem the whole world is now seeing the damage it can
cause. In the past 20 years, the amount of global waste generation increased by 50% (UNEP,
2010)[4], the garbage collection field and the landfill are increasingly saturated.
As a general picture, according to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF)’s estimation on the use of
resources and world’s population, the volume of resource consumption by human beings and the
amount of garbage produced is equivalent to 1.5 times the Earth can bear.
Sustainability has never been such a prominent issue faced by the whole human being society. The
Brundtland Commission in 1987 defined sustainability as using resources in a way and at a rate that
enables the current generation to meet their needs and desires without compromising the ability of
future generations to meet their own needs and desires.
The tourism industry has higher dependence on natural and cultural assets and is more
vulnerabilities to climate change impacts than any other industries. It faces a plethora of issues, risks
and opportunities related to sustainability and climate change. These include addressing climate
change and resource consumption, minimising generation of waste, and attracting and retaining
high-performing employees. The industry must also respond to the sustainability-related expectations
Advanced Materials Research Online: 2012-10-08
ISSN: 1662-8985, Vols. 573-574, pp 885-889
doi:10.4028/www.scientific.net/AMR.573-574.885
© 2012 Trans Tech Publications Ltd, All Rights Reserved
All rights reserved. No part of contents of this paper may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without the written permission of Trans
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