Five-star operators are being called to account

When high-end hotels feel they have to provide Wagyu beef and coffee pods for guests, it’s time to redefine luxury to make it more eco.

It’s time to redefine luxury.

Somewhere in South Asia, the chairman of the national hotel association recently took his members to task. It was not enough, he said, to put out self-congratulatory press releases about wooden toothbrushes and the removal of single-use plastics. It was disingenuous to boast about hotel vegetable gardens when they were still importing Wagyu beef, aluminium coffee pods and Jaffa oranges. Hypocritical to brag about the weekly beach clean when they still had a helipad. “But what can we do?” the members replied. “Our guests demand such luxuries.”

Who’s to blame for this impasse? Is it the industry for lacking the courage or ambition to force through the changes necessary to make travel sustainable? Or is it us for our unwillingness to modify our expectations in a fast-changing world?

We could conclude that the parties are equally culpable: them for sending a helicopter to meet us at the airport; us for taking that rather than the ferry transfer. Them for putting the jet-fresh oysters on the menu; us for ordering them. Them for suggesting that planting a tree for every booking washes away all sins. Us for agreeing and piously using the same towel twice. But we’re both wrong, because we’re clinging onto a notion of luxury that’s as outdated and morally unacceptable as drink-driving.

Woman in bed enjoying breakfast.

We’ve all heard the science, which since 1896 has been telling us that anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions trap heat in our atmosphere. The consequent global warming is changing the climate. Global average temperatures are now 1.1 degrees above the pre-industrial average, and climate-attribution science shows that the increase in heatwaves, floods and droughts to be largely, if not exclusively, due to that.

At 1.5 degrees above it gets worse: 6 per cent of insects, 8 per cent of plants and 4 per cent of vertebrates lose half their habitat. Sea levels rise by about 50cm, putting millions living in coastal areas at risk. Hurricanes become stronger and more frequent and the chances of unprecedented summer heat in Britain, for example, increases by 47 per cent. Researchers at Berkeley Earth predict we’ll hit 1.5 by 2033.

At 2 degrees the threat to biodiversity doubles, the frequency of heatwaves in the Med, for example, shoots up by 479 per cent and scientists fear that so-called climate tipping points – including the collapse of the Greenland Ice Sheet; the release of trapped carbon in melting permafrost; and a fatal disruption of the Gulf Stream – could trigger an abrupt and irrevocable decline into a climate chaos that could displace up to a billion people, trigger ecosystem collapse and putting a million species at risk of extinction.

Cutting GHGs is the only chance we have of staying below 2 degrees, but current commitments can, at best, limit warming to 2.4 degrees. At Cop27 in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, next month (November 6-18), scientists will tell ministers that only a universal effort to reduce GHGs can avert the coming disaster – which brings us back to the wagyu.

Livestock production is responsible for 18 per cent of global GHGs. Flying, shipping and driving beef to distant markets extends that footprint. Putting it on the menu instead of regional alternatives denies income and opportunity to local producers – so wagyu’s far-flung usage misses at least five of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. But this is just one example. Airconditioning, golf courses, heated pools, spas, buffets and Rolls-Royce transfers also add to the cost.

We’re clinging onto a notion of luxury that’s as outdated and morally unacceptable as drink-driving.

A 2021 study of hotels in Mauritius found that the carbon footprint of a five-star room was 2.3 times higher than that of a three-star hotel, and a report by the Sustainable Hospitality Alliance warns that hotels must cut emissions by 66 per cent by 2030, and 90 per cent by 2050, in order to keep growth within climate goals. Achieving that goes beyond wooden toothbrushes and hydroponic vegetable patches. It requires the fundamental redefinition of the concept of luxury. For us it means the rejection of our Harry and Meghan-style aspirations to private-jet usage; the acceptance that the bottled water won’t be from a Norwegian glacier (unless you’re in Norway); and the removal of the expectation that luxury means living like a pampered Emirati princess.

All tourism, especially at the top end, has traditionally been extractive. Just watch cruise ship passengers arriving in Venice or a Caribbean port, adding nothing but port fees and the cost of a fridge magnet to the local economy. Change percolates downwards in tourism, so luxury trends lead the way. And we need to start by asking our tour operators or travel agents one question: when I check out of this hotel, will I leave the local culture, economy and environment in a better way? If it’s demonstrably working towards net zero or better, then you probably will. And even if you don’t believe in climate change – or profess not to because you have shares in BP – surely it’s objectively better to stay at hotels that consider social and environmental benefits to be as important as profit?

For the industry, acknowledging the need to build a new model instead of painting the old one green will only work if there’s impassioned commitment from the very top — as shown by two of the world’s most pioneering hospitality companies.

The Cooray family, who run Jetwing Hotels in Sri Lanka, travel mainly by public transport. They’ve established farms; invested in local talent; reintroduced native rice varieties to reduce dependency on imports; and, in an astonishing feat that shames the big brands, have succeeded in using biomass, solar and biogas from kitchen waste to meet 80 per cent of energy needs at one hotel and 76 per cent at another. They’re now searching the jungles for the ingredients with which to make their own tonic water.

In Mauritius, Attitude Hotels CEO Jean-Michel Pitot has outsourced much of the cooking to local women. Filtered water is dispensed from fountains around his hotels. Packaged items in rooms such as sugar, tea, coffee and snacks have been replaced by a help-yourself bulk store. Mauritian products get precedence over imports, even if they’re more expensive; beaches are equipped with eco-friendly sunscreen; and 100 per cent of waste is recycled. His hotels don’t offer wagyu but you will never feel that luxury has been compromised. It’s simply been redefined.

THE TIMES