me and flying

I was a late starter when it came to flying. My father is a mechanical engineer and would rather not fly than have his fears realised. So our holidays remained strictly on terra firma and my only trips to Heathrow were to watch the Concordes take off. Had passengers looked up at the large departure hall window, they would have seen a small red head looking back at them and occasionally waving, but always in awe of the spectacular flying machines.

My first flight came when I was at the end of my first year at university and the group of 40 students on my Russian course was packed up and sent off to Moscow for a three week learning experience. Judging by looks from my colleagues when they learnt that I was taking my first flight in 2001, a massive 20 years after my birth date, I was alone in my virgin voyage. Nonetheless, the trip signalled a new era and a short lived love affair in my travelling career. I had discovered a new found freedom and I would return from subsequent journeys a slightly different person from when I had left.

However, that feeling as a young child of watching business people and smart(ish) holiday makers shuffling around the sparkling halls at Heathrow will probably remain a distant memory in the past. With a media that jumps on every word from the airports and airline companies dictating the mood in the business and tourist world with such ease, it is little wonder that airports have become a hub of despair and now environmental concern. Shunning the airport altogether is never going to be easy. Shunning cheap flights is easier. As today’s flying culture goes, the experience will never live up to the one I gazed in on during the 1980s, so avoiding it as much as possible to cut down on my carbon footprint does not pose such a major problem. For those to whom flying is a necessity and not a choice, it will inevitably be a bigger challenge. But looking at the alternatives, and turning an ‘escape’ into an eco-adventure, the possibilities are endless.

responsible tourism conference offers free flights to delegates

The 2007 conference of the Institute of Travel Management (ITM) will be taking as its theme Responsible Tourism Management. The annual conference attracts the industry’s biggest movers and shakers and 2007 will see a key note speech from Jonathan Porritt of Forum for the Future, a leading sustainable development think tank.

So why have they got it all wrong?

For the simple reason that all delegates are offered free flights to the Edinburgh based conference courtesy of sponsorship deals with the likes of BMI, FlyBe and British Airways. Is Edinburgh so unreachable by train?

When questioned with this seemingly paradoxical situation, the response from the conference organisers was as follows:

“As some delegates will be travelling from the south of England it may not be feasible time wise for all delegates to travel via train which is why there is an alternative offered to those who will be coming from further a field.”

It would appear that a 4 and a half hour journey from London is just too much for the busy modern executive.

At the moment the tourism industry is willing to preach to consumers about responsible travel but not take on board any of this practice in its working life. When will people realise it's as important HOW you get as what you do while you're there.

empty roads

Public transport frequently emerges in the debate around sustainable tourism. By promoting the use of green tourism businesses, we also have to promote the use of public transport. In my own experiences this can sometimes be a little frustrating when trains are delayed and buses only run twice a day. Therefore it was encouraging to learn that one man took to the road for a whole year to draw the lines between the UK's YHA properties. Not once was he permitted to drive or rely on any other form of transport other than public transport. In his own words the experience was not as difficult as it may seem. The product of his work can be found at www.emptyroads.com which contains a map detailing the bus routes to youth hostels across the country.

recycling ecoescape: part 1

Thanks to Arthur at Calverts, we have our first suggestion of how to go about recycling well loved and well read ecoescapes at the end of next year.

Fuel for the fire

ecoescape can be turned into a very handy log for your open fire or the barbeque. You just have to follow some very easy instructions and incredibly the briquette will burn for 1 - 2 hours and leave a very small ash deposit!

1. Take one very well used guide and remove staple.

2. Half fill a bucket with water.

3. To the bucket add the old copy of the guide, and any other newspaper you have lying about.

4. Soak until you have a gooey pulpy mush.

5. Next you will need something to squeeze out the excess water. You can buy them here or here. Put the mush in the briquette maker, squeeze and leave until dry to form a very handy brick shape or 'log'. Logs can be made without the briquette maker providing pulp is dried out and compressed properly.

6. Alternatively, the pulp can be added in small amounts to a compost heap.

You may wonder why we are talking about ecoescape's return to the ashes before it has even been printed, but that's how much we care about what it means to create a product which is sustainable and part of a life cycle and not simply thrown into landfill. If you have more ideas for ecoescape's after life email info@ecoescape.org. Don't forget ecoescape will return with a new installment in 2008!

exit strategy

As I mentioned before, ecoescape will have a responsible life cycle. This means that not only will we think about what goes in, but we will also more importantly be looking at what comes out. In other words what happens when ecoescape has been consumed, read, digested and loved? As much as we would like everyone to treasure ecoescape forever on their mantlepieces the breadth and width of the country, we would so much prefer it if we all combined creativity and recycling to help restore this guide's ambition to be high impact on behaviour but low impact on the planet. So what do we do? email your ideas to info@ecoescape.org. To start, we'll publish instructions on how to make your very own waste paper briquette much like Strattons Hotel have done (below).

advertising in ecoescape

ecoescape is genuinely encouraged by all the support it has recieved from individuals, organisations and friends and family so far. What a font of knowledge the project has opened up and will set free! There's so much to tell that we just know we'll have to save some for next time when the guide will return year after year...

Our next step is to appeal to the media and commercial organisations for support. ecoescape can help them reach faithful audiences and also discover new ones as green becomes more mainstream.

We are keeping advertising in the guide to an absolute minimum to cover printing and distribution costs. However, there are a few remaining bargains to be had. Please contact Laura with your media pack request on info@ecoescape.org.

The responsible life cycle of ecoescape

Not only will ecoescape aspire to close the print production loop of its life cycle, but the supply chain responsible for that loop will all hold and practice values which do business in an environmentally and socially sustainable way.

As publisher and developer of ecoescape, Lo Carb Travel has a strict operational manifesto which monitors the environmental and social impact of its work. An integral part of this work is to source suppliers which share similar values.

So far the chain looks a little something like this:

Lo Carb Travel - ecoescape – eskimo design – Calverts – and the chain is growing