In a globalized world where seemingly anything can be delivered with the touch of a button, what does it mean to practice sustainable travel? We checked in with sustainability expert Juliet Kinsman to find out.

Juliet Kinsman, an editor, journalist, and broadcaster for almost three decades, is a passionate champion of forward-thinking hotels, travel visionaries, and luxury brands that are having a positive impact. The first Sustainability Editor of Condé Nast Traveller and the driving force behind the London Evening Standard’s new sustainable travel channel, she’s written and edited many travel guidebooks, most recently The Green Edit: Travel — Easy Tips for the Eco-Friendly Traveller (Ebury) and The Bucket List: Eco Experiences‘ (Rizzoli). Juliet uses her voice to not just ask questions but to demand solutions. The way she judges what makes a sustainable travel business worth celebrating is by weighing up whether their overall impact is positive and purposeful, not just performative, and whether their ownership is actively doing measurable good for nature or their local communities.

A Chat on Sustainable Travel Beyond Greenwashing

SmartFlyer: Juliet, tell us a bit about your background as a journalist and climate advocate. What led you to focus on sustainability?

Juliet Kinsman: Curiosity and the love of stories that make you think, and an appetite to learn more is probably what characterises many of us journalists. Having been born in Canada, at six months old, my parents moved us to Algeria. The next stop was New York City, and I think that cultivated an instinct to always explore and immerse myself in new cultures. Naomi Klein’s book, No Logo, more than 20 years ago brought home the importance of thinking about who you give your money to and why it matters. I’ve always been aware of the inequality in our world and our impact as human beings on our environments and how that plays into the bigger picture. Studying Social Anthropology at university stoked a fascination around how we humans tick and choose to live — and the observation that as society supposedly evolves, it often diminishes human connections with an unhealthy pursuit of more, more, more.

…every day, I hear an inspiring story from the travel industry where a person or a property is doing something incredible to support the community or regenerate nature thanks to revenue from luxury travel.

After many years as editor-in-chief at Mr & Mrs Smith, which we started creating in 2002, I noticed no one was specifically celebrating the boutique, eco hotels doing good for nature and their communities: so I set up Bouteco — a portmanteau of those words — as a consultancy and through BoutecoLoves.com spotlight the heroes in the sustainable luxury travel space. There’s nothing I love more than working with hotels to articulate what they care about and help them stand for something and stand out for it. I’ve been the sustainability editor of Condé Nast Traveller since 2020, and every day, I hear an inspiring story from the travel industry where a person or a property is doing something incredible to support the community or regenerate nature thanks to revenue from luxury travel — just have a look at what the likes of andBeyond achieves through its safaris.

You’ve traveled extensively and witnessed the impact of climate change on communities around the world. What is the most striking instance of climate change you’ve seen first-hand, and how has it shaped your advocacy?

Juliet Kinsman: Whenever I visit low-lying island nations or countries in Africa, it really brings home the effects of a heating world. Our climate in flux is already resulting in water scarcity, food insecurity, mass migration, devastating droughts, and flooding — which either does or soon will affect every single nation and population in some way or another. Faltering weather and extended dry periods mean a change in geography and the collapse of whole ecosystems — it affects all of us when animals can no longer live in sync with the seasons. Nowhere can you see this more dramatically than in Kenya? For East Africa, the levels of deforestation are crazy — from population growth and from desperation to create energy and cash, the pastorialists who were once custodians of nature are now turning trees into charcoal. As a luxury traveller, this also all means fewer animals — forget about those epic images of yore of the Great Migration season showing the wildebeest herds moving south from Tanzania’s Serengeti as seen in the brochures — some say the numbers making the 2,000-mile crossing have dropped by 90% since the 1970s. I talk about it here in the first of my How to Travel Better columns for Condé Nast Traveller.

Also, having visited ski resorts, you’ll often hear them talk about shrinking glaciers — as I did when I was in Arosa in Switzerland, and again this is going to affect how we holiday in the future; as I say in this article: Professor Reto Knutti, climate scientist and professor of climate physics at ETH Zurich’s Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science and a member of the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was one of the esteemed scientists who contributed to the reports that present evidence that human activities, mainly the burning fossil fuels, have warmed the climate by more than one-degree celsius already, causing severe impacts. His presentation in Arosa revealed that 26 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in Switzerland come from private petrol-run cars tackling those inclines on leisure excursions. Another reason to travel by train around the country is that 90 percent of the railway network runs on hydropower – with Switzerland’s goal to make this 100 percent by 2025.

What steps have you seen put into place to address climate change that’s inspired you?

Juliet Kinsman: It’s always a joy to celebrate climate-positive initiatives that are really setting a benchmark for hosts and operators. I’m hugely impressed with all that The Datai Langkawi in Malaysia is up to, highlighted through their extensive work around the Datai Pledge, which demonstrates the power of luxury hotels to fund incredible community initiatives, protect their rainforest and boost biodiversity, and support gender equality advancements through grass-roots projects.

Many argue that sustainable living is expensive and out of reach for those with lower incomes. How can we make sustainability more accessible and inclusive so everyone can participate?

…it’s about buying less, wasting less, reusing more, it’s about minimising waste and living in a more mindful way.

Juliet Kinsman: Making eco-friendlier choices can also be economical — it’s about buying less, wasting less, reusing more, it’s about minimising waste and living in a more mindful way. The word “sustainable” definitely can also have connotations that your consumer choices will be more expensive. But look at what you eat and drink as being a great example of how this doesn’t need to be the case — choose traditional local cafes or restaurants where your fellow diners aren’t tourists: you’ll have more authentic experiences, it will be great value, and you’ll leave cash in the pockets of those most appreciative.

Greenwashing has become a major issue in the sustainability movement, with many companies making exaggerated or misleading claims about their environmental practices. How can consumers navigate this and make informed choices?

Juliet Kinsman: I’m thrilled sustainability has hit the mainstream but with this has come a rise and greenwashing for sure. The EU is passing legislation to ban greenwashing in May 2024, which is great.  We definitely need to stay alert and be on the lookout for science- and evidence-based claims, and a clear sign a business is measuring and monitoring its impact. Talk of them using Weeva, GreenView, EarthCheck, and such programmes and platforms is always a good sign.

Can technology and innovation play a significant role in solving the climate crisis, or do we need to focus more on changing our behaviors and lifestyles?

Juliet Kinsman: Technology and innovation will be crucial to tackling the symptoms and causes of the climate crisis, of course. Again, I am a big shouter about measuring impact as businesses. It’s extraordinary that some hotels haven’t even started this so it was wonderful to work on the development of the sustainability management Weeva — it is like a ‘Fitbit for hotels’ to measure their impact and operate more responsibly.

But yes — we all need to change our ways. Really it’s consumerism and our obsession with stuff that’s got us into much of this mess. Seek out experiences over amenities that will end up in a landfill. Just stop and think and follow common sense when it comes to using less water, and energy, leaving less waste. Try to think “we” rather than just “me”, and be prepared to compromise on convenience if it’s a really significant trade-off.

Through your writing, editing, and sharing stories through social media, you have been a powerful voice in climate conversations. However, some critics argue that individual actions – such as reducing or offsetting personal carbon footprints – are insignificant compared to the actions of corporations and governments. How do you respond to this criticism?

We definitely need big corporations and legislation dictating carbon emissions to progress at scale, but collectively our individual actions count immeasurably.

Juliet Kinsman: Marginal gains as they call it in sports, all make a big difference. Yes, we need top-down action and bottom-up change. We definitely need big corporations and legislation dictating carbon emissions to progress at scale, but collectively our individual actions count immeasurably. But imagine if every other person in the SmartFlyer community made it their personal policy to stop drinking water from plastic bottles — just picture how many plastic bottles that would save in just one year. Now imagine the effects of their networks and client base if only one in three of them followed their lead around that. That would be a lot fewer water bottles in use which have been produced through petrochemical-heavy manufacturing, and a lot less heading to landfill. We can impact as individuals.

I’ll never forget, complaining about a Nobu in Marbella serving imported Fiji bottled water shipped halfway across the world — they contacted me six months later to say thanks to me asking to speak to the manager and saying I’d prefer to drink a local Spanish mineral water in Spain, that they had changed the company-wide procurement policy. We can all be the change. Every darn day. 

We were in London for SmartFlyer CORE 2024 — what hotels or hospitality brands have you witnessed putting sustainability in practice in meaningful ways here?

Juliet Kinsman: I live in London, so I always have an eye on who’s doing what and demonstrating good sustainable practices. I am biased because I worked with Mandarin Oriental to look into and write about their sustainability for their report, but what’s excited me was hearing about their new solar technology from Naked Energy, which is a new thermal collector innovation instead of traditional photovoltaic panels, it will capture renewable energy from the sun from the roof by Hyde Park in a way that will provide enough energy to heat all the water for the property, reducing energy costs by about 70% of the building’s energy consumption. And not only is this vacuum tube tech forward-thinking, Naked Energy’s supply chain doesn’t stray outside of Europe. Details like this matter.

We need hotels and hospitality businesses to consider every link in their extended value chains and talk loudly and proudly about these kinds of advances as it sends a really important message to everyone in their sector. 1 Hotel Mayfair is an exemplar of adaptive design, not that you’ll read about that in their press materials — that’s when it’s up to us to do our homework. Across the street from the Ritz, this is a sophisticated reimagining of an address that used to be a Holiday Inn in Mayfair — now you get organic luxury and greenery in London’s most upscale neighbourhood.

As someone who has been involved in the sustainability movement for many years, what gives you hope for the future? What progress have you seen that inspires you to continue your work?

Inspiring intelligent travel agents give me hope — when I meet such incredible people who are planning incredible trips in ways that lure luxury travellers to incredible initiatives that leave money with businesses such as nature-protecting lodges in Africa or marine conservation game changes in Asia, I feel so uplifted. Travel agents are like travel writers — they’re curious, they ask lots of questions, and they love sharing stories. Just think how much impact we can have if we keep asking more questions about the suppliers we use — even just asking businesses about their sustainability and climate policies will get them to think more deeply about their impact. So just keep asking more questions and staying curious!