UNWTO honors Canadian Mountain Holidays for sustainable tourism efforts
Sustainable tourism seems to be dominating travel world headlines this year. On the one hand, governments are beginning to scrutinize the reliability of carbon offset programs; on the other, virtually every day a new airline, hotel or tour operator announces they are now carbon neutral. As the greener than thou clamor swells, it’s hard to know who to trust.
Within this context, it’s especially significant that the United Nations World Tourism Organization recently honored an Adventure Collection member for its commitment to sustainable tourism with the first-ever e-Tourism Climate Change Award.
That award recognizes Canadian Mountain Holidays’ efforts to raise awareness and promote understanding of sustainable tourism through its web site, notably its Stewardship section: This area houses the Second Nature program as well as ongoing sustainability reports and descriptions of company-wide environmental and social initiatives.
I asked Dave Butler, CMH’s director of land resources, to describe the company’s most exciting sustainable travel programs and initiatives, and to provide some examples of each. He highlighted the following three:
Telling Our Stories: “We’re encouraging our staff in the lodges to talk more with guests about our approach to sustainability,” Butler said. “Telling our stories, to me, means that staff take the time to explain the big picture to guests and then tell/show them what’s happening in their area at the lodge level, building stories that put the issue in a local perspective. It’s easy to say we care about climate change, for example, but more meaningful if one of our lodge staff can say: Here’s what we’re doing about it in this lodge, and here are the results we’ve seen.
“So for the staff at Galena, for example, they can talk about climate change and then explain/show how they’ve switched the lodge to a small run-of-the-creek micro-hydro system. For the staff in the Bugaboos, Cariboos and Adamants, they can talk about waste management and then show guests the composters which have resulted in a dramatic reduction in amounts of kitchen waste going to land-fills or incinerators. Ideally, those guests might not only feel better about their trip, but they just might change some of their behaviors when they get home.
“Another story all of our staff can relate to is the link between tourism and land conservation, and our new partnership with the Nature Conservancy of Canada. This relationship – the first of its kind between NCC and a tourism operation -- is formed on common ground: We not only have many common conservation goals, often focused on the principles of sustainability, but their Rocky Mountains Ecoregion encloses all 12 of our tenured operating areas. By working together in programs such as direct and indirect sponsorships, staff involvement, cross marketing to our respective client groups, and building educational and awareness opportunities, we hope to build on each other’s successes, with the ultimate goal of ensuring that the amazing landscapes of these areas (particularly those on private land) are maintained for the future. The bottom line is that we want to be doing good, solid on-the-ground conservation work with no political agendas.”
Mountain Caribou: “This is a species-at-risk that inhabits many of our operating areas,” Butler said. “We’re working closely with government biologists, consulting biologists, other business and recreation sectors and environmental groups on a broad recovery strategy. Within CMH, we have developed what we believe to be a very sophisticated approach -- which includes operating procedures, on-going staff training and use of technology –- to run our skiing and flying so that we do not cause any displacement of animals from the habitats they choose to be in.”
Second Nature Committee: “Finally,” Butler continued, “we have a team of passionate internal cheer-leaders in place, one in each lodge and two in each of our headquarter offices, who are now accountable for driving sustainability with their colleagues. We’ve seen some amazing results from this team; these range from constructing composters, shifting from bottled beer and water, supporting local community causes, and working with suppliers to significantly reduce packaging on in-coming materials and supplies, to simple changes in how we illuminate and heat buildings that have had dramatic effects on energy use.
“One good example involves Rick Carswell, our food and beverage manager. In past years, CMH fish suppliers have used styrofoam cartons to transport fresh fish to our lodges. This resulted in large amounts of non-recyclable waste styrofoam (about 304 large boxes each year), which had to be picked up from the lodges and then disposed of at landfill sites.
“Rick saw the volume of waste we were producing and -- on his own initiative -- encouraged fish suppliers to ship in reusable blue plastic boxes. Over the last four winters and three summers, this effort has meant 1024 fewer styrofoam fish boxes entering landfills, and has saved CMH money transporting the waste. Rick now requires all fish suppliers doing business with CMH to use the same system.
“Rick then went on to implement the same initiative with our Invermere-based bread supplier, requiring them to use foldable boxes. The boxes are returned to, and reused by, the supplier, eliminating waste on our end and costs for both parties. Over the last four years, we've eliminated 2208 corrugated cardboard boxes from entering the waste stream.
“Another example: Our maintenance man in the Adamants, Duane Dukart, is known for not accepting things as they are, and for thinking outside the box. He saw how many truck-loads of amber-filled bottles and cans – from many locations around the world -- we were bringing in and out of the lodge to quench the thirst of our skiers and hikers. Instead, he made a shift to use kegs of beer made by a local Revelstoke-based brewer. As a result, not only are we supporting a local business, but we have almost no cans or bottles to move.
“In that same vein, Duane watched as our guests and staff consumed vast quantities of carbonated water, again bottled and brought in from many places around the world. Duane knew that the water coming out of the lodge taps was as good as any in the world, so he searched out and purchased a carbonating machine that now produces some of the finest carbonated water this side of the Rocky Mountains, and is a big hit with staff and guests. And no bottles to bring in to the lodge or to then take back to recycling!”
These are inspiring examples of how one company can exert a definable positive impact on the world through sustainable tourism principles and practices conceived and implemented at the local level. May these exemplary seeds from Canada grow into hundreds of global blooms!
