HOLIDAY FOOTPRINTING(Text adapted from WWF) Holiday Footprinting is a
practical tool that enables tour operators to calculate the environmental
impact, or ecological "footprint", that a holiday product has on
the environment in terms of resources used. It also gives an estimate of
the relative environmental sustainability of a product, and helps to
identify opportunities for footprint reduction and cost savings. Holiday Footprinting is also a
useful communication tool with which to convey information about a range
of environmental issues associated with tourism. If the Earth is regarded
as a reserve of natural capital, each year producing interest in the form
of renewable natural resources, then environmental sustainability requires
that humanity lives off the interest rather than eat into the underlying
capital. Footprinting assesses the Earth's available resource, or annual
interest, made up of productive land and sea, and quantifies it as a
single measurable unit, or currency, known as the "area unit".
An area unit corresponds to one hectare of world average bioproductive
space. At present there are around two area units available per person on
the planet. This is an individual's "earthshare". Holiday
Footprinting quantifies the area units required for a particular holiday,
and measures multiple environmental impacts through this single aggregated
indicator. It then calculates the percentage of an individual's earthshare
accounted for by that holiday, allowing an estimate of environmental
sustainability to be made. A "live" footprint tool
is available from WWF.
Based on Excel, this software is a simple practical tool that allows tour
operators to input their own data, estimate the footprint of their
particular products, and make an assessment of their relative
environmental sustainability. It also contains the Majorca and Cyprus
holiday analyses and scenarios as examples. It is hoped that the tool will be
used by tour operators in the pursuit of more responsible tourism, and
within the context of sustainability reporting. It provides a useful means
of quantifying environmental impacts as well as identifying opportunities
for cost savings, and Holiday Footprinting accounts for a range of diverse
environmental impacts in a single easily understandable indicator. It should be emphasised the allows
only a first pass analysis. For guidance on how to carry out a more
detailed analysis, and the development of scenarios for footprint reduction tailored to a particular holiday product, please contact Craig Simmons at Best Foot Forward. |