Sustainable luxury is not an oxymoron. It can be found throughout some of the UK's leading hotels, but today it is more about the basics than the bling.
Reprint of an article by Emily Manson, who reports on a new, carefully considered approach to business.
A decade ago, high rise icons like the Burj al Arab were being built as nations reaped the rewards of the boom years. But that's all over now. Overt luxury - or at least the perception of it - has become mildly distasteful, a reminder of the bankers' excesses and the world's ills.
At the same time the environmental awakening has been persistently growing, finally gaining critical mass, and these combined factors are changing the way luxury is perceived - and delivered - in hotels throughout the world.
John Firrell, director of the Considerate Hoteliers Association (CHA), admits that luxury brands came a little late to the sustainability party as luxury was historically about offering the best or most of this or that. "Now, in this straitened world, they don't want to be seen to be wasteful. It's not good PR," he says.
Sustainability champion Raymond Blanc, who was named the winner of the inaugural Good Egg Award for 2009/10 by the CHA, goes further, adding: "Luxury cannot be like it used to be. Our wasteful excesses have brought us to this financial crisis, fishing crisis and environmental crisis. The modern consumer is more responsible, critical and demanding. He wants to know where the food comes from and what is in it. Integrity, as much as authenticity, will be the core value of luxury tomorrow."
Mark Linehan, managing director of the Sustainable Restaurant Association, agrees: "Gone are the decadent days of big spending with no regard for the consequences. Luxury to some meant excess or ostentation, but it's now becoming accepted that 'luxury' can also apply to sustainable products."
Where food comes from, how operations manage their resources, treat their staff and customers, are all now important considerations for consumers when choosing their travel and dining destinations, explains Linehan.
TRAVEL'S CHANGING DEMOGRAPHIC
Evolving consumer demographics are driving changes in the type of luxury that is demanded. While the baby boomer generation, which likes the comfort of branded hotels, still remain the biggest luxury travellers, they are getting older and soon won't travel as much or will look for 'safer' travel choices like cruises.
Angela Clarke, founder of ethical hospitality consultancy Lumiere Associates, predicts: "In 20 years the majority of travellers will have grown up on organic and Fairtrade mantras and will be looking for a different un-branded experience."
A desire for unspoilt, different travel experiences will then become the dominant demand, with consumers looking for simpler, independent, sustainable types of luxury. Indeed there are a growing number of customers already out there looking for this.
SATISFYING DEMAND
So how can operators satisfy these demands? "It's not more difficult or even that much more expensive in many cases for luxury to be sustainable but it has to come from the top down, as it has to be about procurement," advises Clarke.
There are non-toxic paints, natural alternatives to carpeting, low-energy lighting, local wood sources, non chemical-based amenities, hemp robes and non-toxic pesticides for gardens which are all sustainable, readily available on the market and can be used to create luxury.
"Everything has moved ahead so much now, it's just about spending the time on sourcing," says Clarke.
But it's very important that sustainable luxury is not just seen as having to give something up, like driving a car. "It's just doing things in a different way," says Claire Beard, group sustainability manager of the Scarlet hotel in Mawgan Porth, Cornwall.
The proliferation of innovative luxury concepts that has arisen lately is testament to this: from glamping and private island retreats to luxury safaris and treehouses, there are few back-to-basic hospitality concepts that haven't been given the ethical luxury makeover.
Beard explains that for sustainability to become embedded throughout any luxury business, the concept has to be about the ethics behind the concept and the products within it.
"It's not about sacrificing anything but finding that right solution for your operation. Finding luxurious and sustainable solutions or products does take more time and research," she admits, warning: "If the ethics don't go to the core, then initiatives are more likely to be token gestures and greenwashing."
And, of course, increasingly savvy customers will pick up on this, so in the end, it will only be the luxury concepts that truly embrace sustainability that will reap the benefits, in terms of customer appreciation and loyalty.
Some areas of luxury hotels and resorts are naturally more resource intensive and will always be harder to make sustainable. Danny Pecorelli, managing director of Exclusive Hotels, which owns four luxury country house hotels, admits that spas are harder to make sustainable than food and beverage or conferencing because there is an inherent conflict.
"To be really green means not having a spa in the first place, and there is always a slight element of falsely claiming 'greenness', so there has to be some integrity in what you're claiming and trying to achieve," he says.
Within the spa framework, you can only do what you can do, he advises, but even this scope is increasing fast. The challenges of air-conditioning, pools, spa and golf courses can be mitigated with hybrid glass, specialist lighting, de-salinated pools, seawater watering systems and more. Exclusive Hotels' 50,000 used spa slippers are recycled as sofa stuffing by Tidy Planet to reduce wastage.
PRACTICAL ENCOURAGEMENT
Sustainable luxury is, for many, still at the start of the developmental curve, but it's clear that consumers are expecting increasing levels of environmental responsibility at the top end of the market and that what constitutes that market may well be found as much in a tent in Cornwall as a branded five-star hotel.
Firrell says: "Increasingly the excellent hotelier is also a responsible hotelier, and in time the two will become synonymous."
Blanc agrees, adding: "At the end it makes good business sense as more and more social and environmental stresses keep piling on. The rules are changing and while luxury has been the last to change, in tomorrow's world they will go together and enhance each other."
Reprint of an article by Emily Manson
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