Green Options

At first we had to laugh when we got wind (a tailwind no doubt) of how Emirates Airlines Launches San Francisco Service With World’s Longest Green Flight Trial. Even in their posh business class that’s a long flight and lot of CO2 going into the air. But what’s with the Green aspect? Are they going to sell us carbon credits during the in-flight service? We’ll have two organic gin martinis and 20,000 carbon credits please.

Before we totally write this off as greenwashing, we took a look at their green flight. Emirates created what they call “the most environmentally-sophisticated route and trip possible to help save an estimated 2,000 gallons of fuel and 30,000 pounds of carbon emissions on the 16-hour non-stop service.” The airlines worked with various countries to create a route that heads over Dubai, Russia, Iceland, Canada and the United States and other countries. Maybe these guys should work for the UN. We’ll buy the distance thing. Shorter distance, less fuel, less CO2.

Taking a break from the daily San Francisco routine, we headed down to Los Angeles for a conference known as Canada Marketplace where we search for the anything significantly Green in the Great White North. We did discover some hotels, restaurants and other things making that movement in the green direction but that will have to wait for another post.

In this one, we focus on the marketplace itself. This year, they ventured into that Green netherworld to make the conference greener. They even hired a Green conference consultant but we could track down this consultant so we had do go it alone.

We thing we see when we check in is a giant sign from Travel Alberta about how they have purchased carbon credits. It’s no secret of what we think of carbon credits (low on the green totem pole). We’re more about actually doing something to make a change instead of just buying something.