A Sustainable Future

Three luxury properties provide insight and inspiration for environmentally conscious travelers.

UP UNTIL A couple of years ago, I’d never heard the term “greenwashing” or given the notion much thought. The term, now ubiquitous in marketing and PR speak, is typically employed to describe companies that misleadingly market themselves and their products as environmentally friendly. Proclaiming a property environmentally friendly often proves to be a corporate game of smoke and mirrors that, on close examination, doesn’t always necessitate ethical business practices or involve anything other than virtue signaling with a minimal amount of follow-through.

As the cultural landscape became increasingly eco-identified — green products, green activities, green-friendly accommodations — the term itself has become vague and impossible to codify. Hotels and resorts might brand themselves green while, in reality, the “eco-friendly” and “eco-conscious” marketing can mean as little as using recycled facial tissues in their rooms or kindly suggesting that guests request fewer fresh towels. It does not mean they are yet mandated to take on more substantive issues like single-use plastics, carbon emissions, or kitchen waste.