Tourism in the Green Economy

Maharaj Vijay Reddy, Keith Wilkes

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• eBook ISBN: 9781134626526
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Hospitality, Travel & Tourism Industry
• Index: Business

The concept of the green economy has now entered mainstream policy debates and been endorsed by a range of United Nations and other organizations. The Rio+20 UN conference specifically drew attention to the green economy approach in the context of sustainable development to move away from business-as-usual practices, act to end poverty, address environmental destruction and build a bridge to the sustainable future. It is increasingly recognized that the tourism sector can make a major contribution to the green economy through more sustainable practices, climate change mitigation and ecotourism. The role of tourism sector will continue to be crucial in the post-2015 sustainable development agenda too. However, there are ambiguities about how tourism and allied industries can maximize their contribution to human well-being and ensure environmentally sustainability, embracing issues of political economy, geography and business ethics.

In this context, this book provides consensus about what the green economy entails, what role tourism can play in a green economy, early responses from many countries, on-going and emerging research initiatives that will enable tourism's transition to a green economy. The chapters address three key themes: understanding the Green Economy concept and the role of tourism; responses and initiatives in greening tourism; and emerging techniques and research implications. A wide range of case studies from around the world and in different contexts is included to demonstrate the extent of the challenge and range of opportunities for the tourism industry.

Part 1
Understanding the concept of the green economy and the role of tourism

1
Tourism in the Green Economy

Rio to post-2015

Maharaj Vijay Reddy and Keith Wilkes

Introduction

The concept of the green economy has now entered mainstream policy debates and been endorsed by United Nations and many other organizations. The Rio+20 UN Conference specifically drew attention to the green economy approach in the context of sustainable development to move away from business-as-usual practices, act to end poverty, address environmental destruction and build a bridge to a sustainable future.

Tourism has been identified as a globally important industry in most international meetings and publications outlining the economic status of the world (e.g. 2012 World Economic Situation and Prospects). Together with the travel industry (i.e. including tourist transport, air travel but excluding commuter transport services), tourism contributed $7 trillion to the global economy in 2013, equalling 9.5 per cent of the world’s GDP as a result of the direct, indirect and induced impact of this industry (WTTC, 2014). This quick recovery after the recent economic crisis has been noticed in many countries. The increasing importance of the travel and tourism industry in balancing and improving people’s financial and social capital is realized in almost every country (Reddy, 2013). Equally, it is evident that the environmental impacts of tourism and travel continue to increase in countries across geographic regions. Therefore, it is extremely important to identify many methods and pursue appropriate strategies that will reduce the hurdles facing the carbon reduction targets of the tourism and travel sector to step up measures for transition to a green economy (Reddy and Wilkes, 2012). It is increasingly recognized that the tourism sector can play a pivotal role in a green economy through more sustainable business practices, climate change mitigation and adaptation techniques. However, there are ambiguities about how tourism and allied industries can maximize their contribution to human well-being and ensure environmental sustainability, embracing issues of political economy, geography and business ethics.

In this context, this book provides consensus about what the green economy entails, what role tourism can play in a green economy and ongoing and emerging research initiatives from many countries that will enable tourism’s transition to a green economy. This chapter will review the origins of the green economics concept and how it evolved as a major paradigm in the sustainable development agenda from the First Rio Summit to the current post-2015 framework by assessing a range of international policies. The outcomes of the Rio+20 debates in relation to the post-2015 situation and the areas of focus to advance sustainable tourism are outlined, urging more international, industry and academic engagement. The lessons from Rio+20 and the need to encourage and shape tourism practices to benefit the global sustainable development agenda are discussed. It also addresses the potential role of and the challenges and opportunities that the tourism sector faces in developed and developing countries in line with the UNEP sustainable consumption and production initiative. Finally, the chapter reinstates a set of recommendations to foster green growth in the tourism sector by briefing the skeleton of the other chapters and the organization of the book.

Green economy origins and Rio 1992 outcome

The report to the UK Department of Environment by Pearce, Markandya and Barbier (1989) of the London Environmental Economic Centre called a Blueprint for a Green Economy first used the term ‘green economy’. The authors discussed the meaning of sustainable development in relation to economic wealth and declining environment while addressing the monetary value of national environmental damage, the need for direct and indirect valuation of the environment and the monetary and physical approaches of environmental accounting. Sustainable development was debated as a bequest to the future and that future generations should be compensated for reductions in the endowments of resources brought about by the actions of present generations. Pearce et al. (1989, p. 3) discerned two ways in which the compensation should take place at the heart of the debate over sustainable development:

1. ‘Compensation for the future is best achieved by ensuring that current generations leave the succeeding generations with at least as much capital wealth as the current generation inherited’;
2. ‘Compensation for the future should be focussed not only on man-made capital wealth, but should pay special attention to environmental wealth’, meaning that ‘the future generations must not inherit less environmental capital than the current generation inherited’.

They went on to suggest that it is important to understand how the economy and environment interact and that the economy is not separate from the environment we live in, referring to how the chlorofluorocarbons as a result of environmental damage affect the ozone layer that in turn affects human health and economic productivity. Following Pearce et al. (1989), several publications especially in the areas of environmental and ecological economics called for planners and policy-makers to focus on the green economy concept and advance awareness measures to make it one of the main paradigms for our sustainable future. For instance, Hutchinson, Mellor and Olsen (2002) widened the consideration of economics beyond the classical economists. Cato (2009) summed up the debates as the conventional (area of) economics considers environmental impact to be an externality, something outside its concern whereas the environmental economists were keen to bring these negative impacts back within the discipline.

In United Nations circles, the concept of green economics gained some attention in the run-up to the Earth Summit (United Nations Conference on Environment and Development) at Rio de Janeiro in 1992 as the Canadian Government’s Green Plan was discussed (Meakin, 1992). Among the principles articulated at Rio 1992 were the recognition of the right of states to develop their forests to meet their socio-economic needs, promotion of the transfer of technology to developing countries to help them manage their forests sustainably, and the need for all countries to make efforts to ‘green the world’ through reforestation and forest development (UNEP, 2010).

The first Rio Summit was attended by the heads and representatives of 178 countries and attempted to reduce greenhouse gases and environmental damage to the earth’s life support system. Three decisive agreements were adopted aimed at changing the traditional approach to development, namely: (i) Agenda 21 – a comprehensive programme of action for global action in all areas of sustainable development very much welcomed, utilized and applied by tourism stakeholders; (ii) the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development – a series of principles defining the rights and responsibilities of states; and (iii) the Statement of Forest Principles – a set of principles to underlie the sustainable management of forests worldwide (UN, 1997). Although these agreements that were signed were not explicitly to push the green economy paradigm they gave momentum and ways for the UN member states to work towards sustainable development. In addition to the above three agreements, two crucial legally binding conventions aimed at preventing global climate change and the eradication of the diversity of biological species emerged from Rio 1992.

First, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was set up, which came up with the treaty of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. The Kyoto Protocol has been ratified by 192 of the UNFCCC parties with a commitment to setting internationally binding emission reduction targets placing heavier responsibilities on developed nations under the principle of ‘common but differentiated responsibilities’. Article 11 of the Kyoto Protocol (UN, 1998) also entrusted the developed countries to provide new and additional financial resources to meet the agreed full costs incurred by developing country parties in advancing the implementation of existing commitments to reduce combined aggregate anthropogenic carbon dioxide equivalent emissions of greenhouse gases. This was in line with Pearce et al.’s (1989) green economics thinking of compensating for environmental damage. The Protocol also called on the developed countries to provide new financial resources, including for the transfer of technology and methodologies, needed by developing country parties to meet the agreed full ‘incremental’ costs of advancing the implementation of existing carbon reduction commitments. Under the Kyoto Protocol, countries must meet and monitor their carbon reduction targets primarily through national measures and also through additional market-based mechanisms such as the international emissions trading scheme.

Second, Rio 1992 led to the establishment of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). The objectives of this Convention are the conservation of biological diversity, the sustainable use of its components and the fair and equitable sharing of the benefits arising out of the utilization of genetic resources, including by appropriate access to genetic resources and by appropriate transfer of relevant technologies, taking into account all rights over those resources and to technologies as well as by appropriate funding (UN, 1992). The ultimate objective of Kyoto and the CBD was to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that will prevent dangerous human interference with the climate system (UN, 1997). All these link with the principles of a green economy (i.e. significantly reducing environmental risks and ecological scarcities).

Rio 1992 also called on the General Assembly to establish the Commission under the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) as a means of supporting and encouraging action by governments, business, industry and other non-governmental groups to bring about the social and economic changes needed for sustainable development (UN, 1997). To implement the recommendations of this summit and to follow up the sustainable development programmes, the UN adopted three more agreements aimed at changing the traditional approach to development, including the formation of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development under the Department of Economic and Social Council (UNDESA), currently known as the Division for Sustainable Development. Besides these agreements, Rio 1992 also discussed financial mechanisms for worldwide sustainable development initiatives. It estimated that US$600 billion was required annually by developing countries to implement Agenda 21 (UN, 1997).

In the tourism discipline, Agenda 21 was discussed by several authors (e.g. Aronsson, 2000; Weaver, 2006). Reddy and Wilkes (2012) addressed the shifts in the focus of sustainable development based on global priorities from the 1972 Stockholm Conference to the 2002 Johannesburg Summit outlining the Millennium Development Goals, and the preparatory events for the Rio+20 Summit. With particular reference to the green economy, more clear recognition of the approach in relation to tourism started largely after the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment findings in 2005 listing recreation and ecotourism under the cultural ecosystem services (Reddy, 2013). Other publications by many tourism researchers have contributed to highlight the adaptive capacity of tourism, though there may be variations between subsectors of the industry to adapt to climate change implications (see Barr et al., 2011; Cohen et al., 2014; Dickinson and Lumsdon, 2010; Gossling and Hall, 2006; Peeters, 2007; Scott, 2006; Simpson et al., 2008).

From 2007–08 the world witnessed the worst global economic crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s and the launch of the ‘New Deal’ by then US President Franklin Roosevelt to provide employment and reform taxes and social security to stimulate the economy. Following the 2007–08 economic crisis, there were calls in the global policy arena for a UN response to tackle the contemporary multiple crises through a green economic action as a means of broad-based long-term recovery for countries around the world, which resulted in the ‘Global Green New Deal’ (GGND). The objectives of the GGND were to represent a common desire to restore a disrupted financial system and severe job losses by addressing the vulnerability of the poor; to ensure that our post-crisis economy follows a sustainable model and does not continue to add to the two most significant risks faced by society: ecological scarcity and climate instability (UNEP, 2009). There was no trade-off suggested because all human activity depends on the existence of a responsible framework for using environmental assets. This is especially true of the poorest populations as they depend disproportionately on the ecological commons both for livelihoods and for consumption (UNEP, 2009). In 2010, the UNEP Global Ministerial Environment Forum acknowledged in their declaration that the green economy concept can significantly address current challenges and deliver economic development opportunities and multiple benefits for all nations. The forum also acknowledged UNEP’s leading role in further defining and promoting the green economy concept, and encouraged UNEP to contribute to this work through the preparatory process for the UN Conference on Sustainable Development in 2012 – known as Rio+20 (UN, 2012).

The UNEP (2011) Green Economy report released in the run-up to Rio+20 raised global awareness about the role tourism could play in a green economy. This report defined a green economy as ‘one that results in improved human well-being and social equity, while significantly reducing environmental risks and ecological scarcities’ (UNEP, 2011, p. 16). It also set the stage for a green economy transition by focusing on the eleven key sectors considered to be driving the defining trends of the transition to increase human well-being and social equity reducing environmental risks and ecological scarcities.

Lessons from Rio+20

At Rio+20, tourism was emphasized as a global industry benefiting many countries with the potential to contribute to global sustainable development by paying for environmental conservation, and to reduce poverty and social inequalities. The outcome document of the Rio+20 summit, The Future We Want, outlined how tourism can promote sustainable development while encouraging countries to enhance sustainable tourism practices to benefit local economies and the human and natural environment. ‘We call for enhanced support for sustainable tourism activities and relevant capacity building in developing countries in order to contribute to the achievement of sustainable development’ (UNDESA, 2012, p. 23). Following Rio+20, influential expert group meetings were organized by the UN Division of Sustainable Development to advance environmental protection and reduce poverty through sustainable tourism. Seth (2013, p. 2) states that ‘international tourism can boost foreign exchange earnings while reducing domestic unemployment and lifting individual incomes. And by supporting traditional economic sectors such as textiles and local crafts, it can play a significant role in cultural preservation’. There were several other sustainable tourism capacity-building events, and stock-takin...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Contributors
• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• Part 1 Understanding the concept of the green economy and the role of tourism
• Part 2 Best practices for the greening of tourism and allied industries
• Part 3 Research implications and emerging issues
• Index