When traveling many people like to save money. Whether that is booking the cheapest flight or hotel room or choosing to eat at certain restaurants. These money-saving steps are great but travel could be costing more than just money. It’s not new news that every time someone gets into their car fills it up with gas, commutes to work or heads out on a road trip, they are releasing carbon emissions. The same applies to airline, train, and even boat travel. These aren’t the only factors contributing to a carbon footprint left by a traveler. Things like hotels, food, and recreational activities are all leaving their mark. 

 

    Though there are many ways to enlarge your footprint, there are also many ways to decrease it. According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 2019 transportation in the United States accounted for 30% of all greenhouse gas emissions. What does this mean? Carbon emissions are the release of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere, these can include carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and water vapor. Carbon dioxide accounts for 97% of these emissions, according to the EPA. A carbon footprint includes these emissions but also widens to include plastic and food waste as well. According to The Nature Conservancy, the average carbon footprint for a person in the U.S. is 16 tons while the global average is around 4 tons. These carbon emissions are what contribute to global warming trapping the heat of all the greenhouse gasses within the planet's ozone layer. This is why there is such a focus on decarbonization and carbon offset. These terms refer to the balance and compensation companies and individuals can do to try and make up for the emissions they are releasing into the air. Some of these offsets include planting trees and switching to electric vehicles and machines. 

 

   There are also ways to offset carbon footprints at home. Turning off lights and appliances when not in use, buying water in reusable containers rather than one use, choosing to bike, walk or use public transit for transportation, and making sure that cars that run on gas are regularly tuned up, are just a few ways to live more sustainably. Steps to offset your carbon footprint and your carbon emissions also have the benefit of saving money. How can these steps translate to travel? James Brehm a 20-year-old photographer and traveler from southern California is learning firsthand how to travel sustainably and on a budget. James has always loved to travel and has traveled with his dad since he was young. Going on road trips across the US and through national parks as well as flying to the Maldives and scuba-diving with Manta rays but now he’s taken on a new challenge to solo travel the world. When he first began his trip planning, he admits, he didn’t really think about his carbon footprint or plan his trip around what would reduce his emissions while traveling. However, his money-saving ideas also had another perk. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photo courtesy of @jamesbrehm on Instagram

 

   “To save money while I travel I usually will try to cut back on meals throughout the day. I will tend to do things that are more affordable or free instead of doing touristy tours. So I will go on hikes, go to waterfalls, go to the beach. I’ll also stay in hostels, to save money that way, rather than getting a hotel.” 

 

    Staying in hostels is one of the major ways to leave less of an impact as you travel. Hostels are large houses that have multiple beds and provide a more affordable option for solo travelers and small groups. Hostels can be booked just like hotels through websites like HostelWorld. These are great options and provide a wide range of location options, just like hotels, but have a lot less water, and product waste because everyone provides their own food and toiletries. The typical hostel provides beds either bunked or more expensive private rooms, and a shared bathroom and kitchen. Hostels are a great option, but hotels are still a good option if sharing does not sound appealing. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

     Many hotels are working towards net carbon footprints. This means their carbon emissions are offset completely or their sustainable practices exceed their pollution. Checking to see what a trip’s carbon trail may look like can help travelers choose the best and most sustainable option. To do this people can use carbon footprint calculators like Responsiblestay.org and Staze.com. Companies and organizations like these use traffic from their websites to offset each hotel booking, by planting trees in other countries, converting waste into bio-oil to fuel other sustainable projects, and collecting and destroying gasses that would have otherwise contributed to global warming. This allows travelers to check what effect their hotel stay, food, water and transportation will have on the environment and what it could have been had they chosen a less sustainable option. This is becoming easier as hotels across the U.S. and around the world. There are also federal laws put in place to encourage hotels to become more sustainable. 

 

    These laws cover the amount of carbon emissions a hotel can produce. While the level is not as low as it needs to be, there are gold, silver, and platinum levels of sustainability, with gold being the most sustainable. To achieve these statuses hotels must be evaluated taking into account waste management, product management, single-use equipment, responsible consumption, and any carbon offset practices. One of the laws that recently went into effect across the states of California and New York, was the ban on mini plastic toiletry bottles typically provided in hotels for shampoo, lotion ect. This ban went into effect beginning in 2023 and 2024 for larger hotel establishments while smaller lodging locations will have until 2025 to comply. However, these small steps do not decrease general energy usage. 

 

    According to Staze, a sustainable hotel booking and calculation site, “70% of the carbon footprint of a hotel stay comes from energy usage. The biggest contributor to the carbon footprint of your stay in a hotel is the energy that is used, from the lights and air conditioning in your room to the energy used to wash your sheets and heat your shower.” One way hotels have been able to decrease this percentile is by only washing sheets and towels, if requested by the guest rather than changing them every day. This allows a large decrease in energy usage as a constant change in sheets and towels is not quite necessary. According to Responsiblestay.org, 99.5% of hotels in the U.S. 2022 implemented a linen reviews program to decrease energy usage by choosing to wash sheets every 2 days. another component of betting materials that can contribute to a responsible trip is using responsibly, manufactured bathrobes, linens, and towels derived from organic materials that are rapidly renewable resources like bamboo. One example of a hotel that has implemented this policy is the Cavallo Point Lodge in San Francisco. This hotel in addition to having all responsibly sourced bedding, was built with sustainable materials, using material shredded blue jeans for wall insulation. This is one of the most sustainable ways to keep business running. Well, both use what would be waste as a part of a new structure. It allows the typical materials to be used somewhere else, rather than accumulating more potential waste. 

 

    There is still one more Avenue that needs improvement within the travel industry, and that is water conservation. According to the EPA, “The average family can waste 180 gallons per week, or 9,400 gallons of water annually, from household leaks. That's equivalent to the amount of water needed to wash more than 300 loads of laundry. Household leaks can waste approximately nearly 900 billion gallons of water annually nationwide.” While traveling James came to this realization when traveling around Thailand. “ One way I’m trying to be more sustainable as I travel that I didn't know about before this trip would be to waste less water. Back home I waste a lot of water but here the water is more scarce so I’m having to use all the little bits of water I have before getting more.” Hotels are noticing this large amount of waste as well. Almost 99.% of hotels have implemented water efficiency methods. But what are these methods? Around 83.1% of hotels use drought-tolerant plants to reduce water needed for irrigation. Hotels are also putting measures in place to decrease clean water usage. According to Responsible Stay, “At least one-quarter of all hotels install water-efficient fixtures such as high-efficiency faucets (25.0%), high-efficiency shower heads (32.7%), and low-flow toilets (33.4%).” This will help decrease water consumption per room. In a study done by Cornell Hotel Sustainability Benchmark (CHSB) found that the median water consumption per room of all hotels in the U.S. is 114.3 gallons. As these new measures are implemented this will hopefully decrease the overall amount of water usage and create less waste. 

 

    All of these measures are great steps to decrease travel’s carbon footprint and create a more sustainable future. All of these strategies can be used with individuals and large companies to create a greener earth.