Results tagged “Sustainable Travel” from Intelligent Travel Blog

What better way to explore some of the country's greatest natural treasures and historic sites than a bicycle tour through the back roads of Florida? And now, you can do it any time of the year! In an effort to help make Florida tourism greener, non-profit organization Bike Florida is bringing back year-round, long-distance bicycle touring for the first time in 25 years.

To inaugurate the new initiative, Herb Hiller and Linda Crider, co-founders of the modern-day Florida bicycling movement, will lead a week-long bicycle tour this October 10-16, starting and ending at Palatka, a rural county seat by the St. Johns River in northeastern Florida.

"For too long there's been no organized comfortable cycling way to discover backroads Florida," says Crider.  "These tours are organized for that, but also for fun."

Finnair is seriously green. How serious? It has its own vice president for sustainable development, Kati Ihamäki. Next month the carrier will begin disclosing operational details related to its environmental efforts, including recycling and waste management programs that are designed to "maximize eco-efficiency across operations," she says. Finnair also launched a blog focused largely on sustainability. Contributing editor Christopher Elliott spoke with Ihamäki about some of the myths and realities of being a "green" airline.

Finnair's commitment to the environment isn't a recent thing. Can you give us some history on the airline's environmental initiatives?

Finnair created its first environmental policy group 23 years ago. In the beginning, the focus was on new legislation and requirements, noise pollution and hazardous waste issues. Then in 1997, Finnair expanded its systematic environmental strategy work and published its first external report.

What does a vice president of sustainable development do?

My responsibilities include ensuring that Finnair's environmental goals in Finnair Group business activities are realized in such a way that Finnair is among the leading airlines in environmental activities.

How would you define sustainable development in the airline industry?

I think the most important issue is to have the best available aircraft technology. In environmental matters, it is imperative to actively seek better and more economical operational measures.

OK, what kind of development would you consider to be unsustainable?

Unsustainable development would be just to stick to old habits and operations, using dated technology. This unfortunately is true for many companies at the moment and is greatly due to their economic situations, which won't allow the companies on the brink of existence to make investments.

Should air travelers expect to pay higher prices in order to be environmentally responsible? 

The prices should not be higher, although usually advanced companies aren't competing with price as much as with quality. Sustainability is a part of quality.