Sustainable Travel Hacks For Business Travellers
Sustainable travel is fast becoming more of a priority for businesses and individuals alike. We’ve previously looked at the bigger ways you can make business travel more sustainable. So, this time, we’ll look at some smaller travel hacks. As much as the big aspects of travel like mode, frequency, and accommodation are important, the little things that we as individuals do add up in the end!
7 Sustainable Travel Hacks
There are many big ways you can contribute to sustainability while travelling. However, these big factors likely come into play much less frequently and so it’s just as important to learn easy travel hacks that you can implement every day – even in your personal life! So without further ado, let’s take a look at some of these practices.
1. Support Local
Wherever you are, it’s always a good idea to support the local industry. Supporting local is one of the easiest travel hacks to master.
When planning your stay, consider supporting a local business instead of a large hotel chain. It might be more difficult to research good local spots depending on their visibility online. However, there are ways around this. Invest in a great planning platform like EnterAnGo that takes care of all of the planning for you. All you have to do is enter your start and end destinations and EnterAnGo will not only do the work for you but will find you the greenest options too.
During your stay, also make sure to support local businesses when making purchases. Shop local produce, try out the local cuisine, support local tour companies, and use local travel options. These are all ways that you can support the local economy during your stay. Also, remember to bring along your own tote to avoid plastic bags while you are out and about.
2. Be Mindful Of Your Food Packaging
Many foods are sealed up with an inordinate amount of packaging. This might put you at ease knowing that the integrity of your food has not been compromised. However, the manufacturing process uses a lot of resources and produces a lot of waste. Not to mention the fact that so much of this packaging ends up in landfills or polluting water sources. It’s so important for all of us to make an effort to reduce this.
What you can do is bring your own foldable food storage container and cutlery set. There are many great travel options available. Also, bring a flask for hot drinks and a water bottle or two. As part of planning your trip, you should investigate the drinking water situation of your destination. If the tap water is unsafe, make sure that you bring along a filtering straw to drink with. This filters your water and will save you from purchasing bottled water.
3. Keep Your (Shower) Cool
One of the more obvious travel hacks is related to water use. Essentially, it is to simply use less water. However, the temperature of the water you use is also important to note. Water heaters in households alone use more energy than all other appliances combined! While you might not be staying in a personal household while travelling, this is still a good indicator of the comparative energy usage of water heating systems.
Cold showers may sound like your worst nightmare – especially first thing in the morning. Your body will thank you though! There are several health benefits and even aesthetic ones to taking cold showers. Cold showers are known to increase circulation, support muscle recovery after workouts, and give your hair and skin a great shine. There are even claims that it can aid weight loss. So if sustainability wasn’t enough to convince you to take a cold shower, then the other benefits should be!
In case this hack is too extreme for you, lowering the temperature and keeping warm showers as short as possible help to reduce the carbon footprint as well. Not that much like the hardcore version, but every degree of lower water temperature means less required energy for heating.
4. Consider Greener Sanitary Products
Particularly if you are travelling for business, you want to look your best. Ensure that your self-care products are environmentally friendly and sustainable.
One of the great travel hacks here is to opt for shampoo and conditioner bars instead of liquid ones. Not only do you avoid the potential mess of the bottle coming under pressure on the flight, but you’re also contributing to sustainability. For the same reason, you should also opt for bar soaps instead of liquid body wash.
For all of these, try to use brands that are committed to sustainability themselves. This can be through the packaging they use (recyclable or recycled materials) or their business practices. Many brands use only fair trade materials, employ marginalised peoples, and are committed to sustainability in many different ways.
5. Use A Multiplug Adapter
Instead of buying a new adapter that is specific to your destination each time you travel, invest in one with multiple plug types. They might be a little bit pricier, to begin with, but you will save money overall and your impact on the environment will be much less. Remember, it’s not only about the use of materials but the energy used in manufacturing each piece!
6. Invest In Quality Luggage That Will Last
Working towards sustainability requires us all to make many small changes that all add up at the end of the day. You should have a better idea by now of the common areas where you can make more sustainable choices. However, one thing that people often forget about, is luggage.
Similar to many other products, luggage items are also available in more sustainable alternatives. You need to invest in good quality luggage that will last you for years to come. Purchasing less often means fewer items need to be produced which reduces the environmental impact. The materials your luggage is made of is equally important. Try to invest in items made from sustainable materials.
7. Travel Hacks For Hotel Stays
There may be times when finding accommodation that is committed to sustainable practices is not an option. Fear not, as there are some things that you can do to help.
Firstly, reuse items before sending them for cleaning. Hang your towel after use to air dry, and use it a few times before sending it for laundry. The same goes for your bed linen. A commonly used travel hack is to make use of the “Do not disturb” sign to avoid unnecessary cleaning in hotel rooms.
We have already covered sustainable toiletry hacks, but this might be a good time to remind you that bringing your own toiletries is important. Avoid using those supplied by hotels as many of them come with a lot of packaging and are not necessarily sustainably produced.
Why Sustainable Travel Is Important
Sustainable travel should be important to companies because of the social, environmental, and economic impact that it has on both the starting and end destinations. At the end of the day, it’s about supporting the global community and everyone’s wellbeing – including the business’s.
A lot of the impact will likely only be seen long-term and this can make it more difficult to commit to sustainable practices. However, it’s important to remember that many of these practices will immediately start saving you money.
Closing Thoughts
Travel hacks can and should be used by anyone anywhere. It’s especially important for businesses to commit to using them to improve their sustainability practices. Not only are they doing the right thing by taking care of the environment, but they are also saving money while doing so! There is no downside.
The only disadvantage could be the extra time that researching planning greener trips can take. By using a platform like EnterAnGo, this can easily be sidestepped. So try it out and plan your trips sustainably!