Leo Hickman, a Guardian columnist, published an interesting book called “Final Call - In search of the True Cost of our Holidays”. Its reviewed here and I’ve made a few comments on it.

Eco tourism is all the rage these days and rightly so. We should always consider the impact of where we go and what we do. But as consumers of goods, services and exotic holidays we expect the price to reflect the cost of what we are paying for. If it doesn’t is that our fault or problem?

Well that’s where the consideration or “ethics” of your decision comes into play. I’m in favour of travel as it expands the mind. body and soul. It allows us to gain a different and newer perspective on the world. But do we dare look beneath the surface as Leo has done?

I’m reminded of the excellent Stephen Frears film “Dirty Pretty Things” about the  immigrant workers who keep London going at night whilst people sleep easy. Crap working conditions for service staff are nothing new so why should it be any different on holiday?

What should happen is that people get paid proper wages and work in decent conditions. Then it’s up to them whether to take a job or not. Madeleine Bunting deals with this issue quite well in her book “Willing Slaves” which also looks at the guest worker phenomenon.

My interest is more in the environmental sphere. Simply put we should be paying the Trucost of our activities. How we get that is a bit trickier but doable.  I’ve looked at this before and having been to the UK recently its clear that this issue is center stage.

We must move quickly to connect external environmental costs with the pricing mechanism. Once a cost has been calculated (carbon, nitrogen runoff, water) then that cost gets added in at the point of extraction, abstraction or manufacture. The EC (external cost) flows back to an Environmental Contingency Fund where it sits (in sovereign bonds) until it can be put towards paying for the exact cost that was incurred, whether that is planting some forests to sequester carbon, cleaning a river or fencing land or implementing new water management processes.

As much as we would like it to be, it isn’t (as yet) an exact science. But it will alert consumers to the true cost of the good and allow them to make more accurate purchasing decisions.

Then maybe we can actually enjoy our holiday instead of worrying about how much damage we’re doing to “the planet”.

Tags: carbon emmissions, climate change, eco tourism, ecosystem, environment, externalities, food miles, fossil fuels, global warming, greenhouse gas emissions, travel