Over lunch, a director of a PR company representing travel firms told me she is discouraging them from using the word “green” in copy unless they are really doing something creditable.
About time. Every second email pinging into my in-box is from someone in the travel trade pretending to greenness. An endless number of firms is offering to help air passengers salve their consciences by giving them the opportunity to pay to plant trees. One is even promising to plant a tree “free” in return for every booking. It will do so in Wales — though at least one study suggests that planting outside the tropics could actually contribute to global warming.
Then there’s this kind of thing: “If you want to keep your social conscience clean and your carbon footprint to a minimum, then the Capital Region USA has some great options for keeping your environmental impact to a minimum whilst ensuring maximum fun!” There follows a list of ways in which you can have a “green” holiday, with no mention, of course, of the return flight across the Atlantic that the holiday entails.
The most outrageous nonsense of all, however, comes from the company BCP, which is “urging holidaymakers to go green by taking advantage of the newly opened, environmentally-friendly, multi-story Q-Park car park at Heathrow”.