EarthCheck

EarthCheck Members Score in Conde Nast Awards

This year's Conde Nast Earth Savers Awards has revealed the visionary travel companies  who are doing the most to help communities and protect the environment. Again, Earthcheck Members are among those to take out top honours and we'd like to extend our congratulations!

In a moonlit pagoda high on the Tibetan Plateau, a visitor enjoys locally harvested flat noodles and yak meat, thus helping to preserve the local cuisine.

In Thailand, a luxury resort gives 30 elephants medical care and financial support for life, thus conserving creatures that had been revered in the country for 4,000 years.

On a mile-long stretch of white sand beach in Mozambique, guests in bungalows marvel at the setting, while simultaneously funding a program that brings clean water to 15,000 people who once had no access to it.

All across the world, inspiring stories like these are illustrating how travel can be a serious force for good. For the last four years, Conde Nast has recognised those companies that are leading the way in sustainable travel and tourism.

In 2011, a panel of independent judges and the magazine's editors have selected game-changers in six distinct categories. The results of their efforts demonstrate how the way you spend your travel dollars is helping bring about powerful, positive change across the globe.

The Methodology
How, exactly, were the awards judged? Eight industry sectors can enter: small hotel chains (fewer than 20 properties), large hotel chains, city hotels, small lodges and resorts (fewer than 50 rooms), large lodges and resorts, tour operators, cruise lines, and airlines.

All are assessed on how they exercise social responsibility in five areas: Poverty Relief, Preservation (Environmental/Cultural), Education Programs, Wildlife Conservation, and Health Initiatives.

Fifty-three finalists were chosen by the editors from 131 applicants and then ranked by the judges in each area.
Conde Nast then looked at the overall scores for each; giving credit to those companies who practiced a number of world-saving programs. The final winner for each award was then determined by compiling the judges' rankings.

The Categories

Education: Building schools, opening minds

Health: Funding clinics, fighting disease

Poverty: Enriching local communities

Preservation: Championing heritage, greening the planet

Wildlife: Protecting habitats, saving species

Doing It All: Enough said

The Winners

Lindblad Expeditions (Wildlife Winner; Education Runner-Up)
Why? Because their ships carry scientists and guests into environmentally fragile places to inspire - and institute - conservation.

Lindblad Expeditions has funded scholarships for 50 Galápagos students from a school that teaches about sustainable development, and takes local teachers and students on expeditions so they can get a chance to appreciate remote parts of the archipelago.

Lindblad has awarded 22 fellowships to U.S. teachers, too. "To see the polar bears in the wild was just amazing," explains Julie Costello, a social studies teacher who journeyed to the Arctic from Fargo, North Dakota, in 2010. "Anytime teachers travel, it changes them-and they pass that on to students in so many ways."

In ten years, Lindblad Expeditions has raised more than $9 million for education and conservation programs-much of it from guests who have visited imperiled areas with the company. It has given $700,000 to Oceanites, an Antarctica-focused nonprofit that collects and compiles biological and physical data to help scientists understand the effects of climate change on the South Pole. Oceanites scientists often join Antarctic expeditions, allowing guests to participate in the counting of penguins. 

Along the Baja Peninsula, the company is helping to restore the Colorado River Delta by reestablishing freshwater flows through wetlands and is studying seabird populations as a tool for fisheries management.

In the Galápagos, Lindblad also helps the Charles Darwin Foundation monitor sharks. "Traveling on Lindblad's ships, you understand the importance of its ecological restoration and education projects," Jewson explains. "And you want to support them" 


Banyan Tree (Preservation Winner)
Why? Because all 29 properties operate in harmony with cultural heritage and the environment.

Behind the scenes, Banyan Tree is mindful of the environment and uses the earthCheck Program to help guide their sustainable practices and benchmark the results of their efforts.

As part of the parent company's 2007 commitment to plant 2,000 trees per year for ten years (more than 96,000 trees to date), the Lijiang hotel has installed 5,962 plum, peach, apple, and cherry trees on the property and in nearby Ji Yu Village. The saplings will boost incomes in a virtuous cycle: Banyan Tree has donated the ones in Ji Yu to peasants who once depended on commercial logging, which ravaged the landscape. The intention is for farmers to sell the fruit to a local factory that will sell the resulting dried-fruit snacks to Banyan Tree, which will give them to its guests.

Every Banyan Tree property has an inspiring environmental story. The best part for travelers: The company does all this while offering heavenly comforts. Lijiang has silk-swathed rooms and a spa offering tea scrubs.

"This is a luxury resort making a conscious effort to stay true to local culture," says Christina Johnson, a New York TV executive who honeymooned there in April. "Any company that is doing something about its impact on the environment gets a thumbs-up from me. And they treated us like an emperor and empress" 

Spier (Poverty Winner; Preservation Runner-Up)
Why? Because it's created a self-sustaining ecosystem and economy.

Spier's social policies are impressive. The hotel pays employees more than 30 percent above what the law requires, with a goal for all workers to afford access to health care as well as education for their families. Spier is also helping 13 farmers-disenfranchised from the land because of apartheid-rent government land leased by the company. For five years, Spier paid the rent and helped build infrastructure for the farms. Now the farmers' cooperative is so successful they are able to rent the land directly from the government. If a local has a dream, it seems likely Spier will try to fund it.

Guludo Beach Lodge (Education Winner; Poverty Winner; Health Runner-Up)
Why? Because this hotel has leveraged upscale travel to change the lives of 15,000 Africans.

The integration of philanthropy and tourism was exactly what Amy and Neal Carter-James had in mind when they were looking for a location to develop a resort. Their beach abuts a community that in 2002 had no access to clean water, few children going to school, and one child in three dying before his or her fifth birthday. The resort works with more than 150 local suppliers and employs 80 villagers, and its Nema Foundation attacks the causes of poverty, like poor health and lack of education. The results are astounding: clean water for 15,000 people; school meals for 800 children; 9,000 mosquito nets distributed; two new primary schools; and 162 secondary school scholarships.

Meanwhile, the setting isn't bad, either. The private villas feature outdoor showers with water spewing from coconut shells. Even the toilets are alfresco-with sea views. When guests aren't lying on the beach or gazing at humpback whales, they can head to the nearby village, meet locals, and visit water wells and school programs. "My kids used the money they'd been saving for souvenirs to pay for a water-filtration system," McCune recalls. "I always describe Guludo as my favorite place ever" (258-82-2-34-470; doubles, $245-$395, all-inclusive).

Accor  (Health Winner; Preservation Winner)
Why? Because it's fighting AIDS and child trafficking-and planting trees around the world.

EarthCheck Member Accor has been a travel industry leader in the fight against HIV/AIDS since 2002, when its management team in Africa launched an awareness, prevention, and testing program. After then-CEO Gilles Pélisson traveled to Cameroon and witnessed the toll that the disease was taking on his employees, Accor joined the Global Business Coalition on HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (now GBCHealth). Today, Accor's health education program has spread to 32 countries, reaching 40,000 employees. Guests can even convert frequent-stay points into donations to the Institut Pasteur, which funds research on infectious diseases. Accor is also tackling child sex tourism: Last year, more than 10,000 employees were trained to recognize and report pedophiles to the authorities, and a guest awareness program has been launched.

Accor is going way beyond the industry standard to encourage hotel guests to save water, too. For every five towels that guests reuse, the company plants one tree. By April 2010, a total of one million trees had been funded for reforestation projects in the United States, Brazil, Romania, Indonesia, Australia, Senegal, and Thailand. In Siem Reap, the Sofitel helps the nonprofit Agrisud to teach farmers about environmentally friendly methods, in addition to guiding them toward planting crops that hotels need. Instead of importing from Thailand and Vietnam, the hotel now sources its eggplant, squash, lettuce, and herbs locally, helping almost 300 farmers to support their families.

Do all these do-gooder efforts make a difference to travelers? "It can be uncomfortable to find oneself in great luxury, surrounded by people who have suffered enormously and live in poverty," says Gartland. "Knowing that a hotel is helping the community and not adding to environmental problems is really encouraging" 

Wolgan Valley Resort & Spa (Wildlife Winner; Preservation Runner-Up)
Why? The carbon-neutral resort is reintroducing decimated plant species and protecting animals.

At the Wolgan Valley Resort at dusk, kangaroos hop across the valley in the shadow of the rock outcroppings of the Blue Mountains. "The setting was almost mystical," says Rye, New York, resident John Shaughnessy, who traveled there last February. The resort, located on a former cattle station, has spent nearly $140 million building 40 elegant villas (with rainwater-filled indoor plunge pools) and reviving the land with plant species that had been decimated by cattle grazing. And thanks to some 100 solar panels and windmills used for pumping water, it is carbon neutral. The company's commitment to diversity is just as impressive. Australia has the world's highest rate of mammal extinction, owing mostly to the incursion of non-indigenous predators brought in to control populations. The resort is establishing a "feral-free" habitat to protect small marsupials such as pademelons.

On your personal mountain bike, you can cruise the 4,000-acre property, which teems with 132 species of vertebrates (including wallaroos), 96 varieties of birds, and 3 types of frogs. Or you can hike forests where eucalyptus vapors catch the sunlight, producing the blue haze that gives the mountains their name. The resort is also reintroducing the 200-million-year-old Wollemi pine, once presumed extinct. No doubt the young Charles Darwin, who visited the valley in 1836 on a trip to explore Australia's natural history, would be delighted: Thanks to a luxury resort, the area is brimming with diversity once again


The Judges

David Alport, VP, GBCHealth

Bill Chameides, Dean, Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Studies, Duke University

Laurie David, Co-producer, An Inconvenient Truth; board member, Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC)

Kevin Doyle, News Editor, Condé Nast Traveler

Chantal Dunbar, Global Marketing and Communications Manager, EarthCheck

Dorinda Elliott, Global Affairs Editor, Condé Nast Traveler

Erika Harms, Executive Director, Global Sustainable Tourism Council

Martha Honey, Co-director, Center for Responsible Travel

Herve Humler, President and COO, Ritz-Carlton

Kara Hartnett Hurst, VP, BSR

Jorie Butler Kent, VC, Abercrombie & Kent

Ron Mader, Founder, Planeta.com

Brian T. Mullis, President and CEO, Sustainable Travel International

Hans Pfister, President and co-owner, Cayuga Sustainable Hospitality

Kate Roberts, VP corporate marketing and communications, PSI

Linda Rottenberg, co-founder and CEO, Endeavor

Mika Vehviläinen, President and CEO, Finnair

Tensie Whelan, President, Rainforest Alliance

Gary White, Executive Director, Water.org