To initiate action and promote Responsible Tourism, eonEcon Foundation in collaboration with the Chandigarh Administration, a Conference was held on 29th March 2008 at the UT Guest House, Sector-6, Chandigarh. The conference was to promote consciousness about social, economic and environment responsibility of tourism industry and how it could be cost-effective as well.

Tourism has a huge impact on the social, economic and environmental aspects of the particular area. Responsible Tourism is a tourism management strategy that embraces planning, management, product development and marketing to bring about positive economic, social, cultural and environmental impacts. The Cape Town Convention of 2002 declared Responsible Tourism to be a form of tourism that:

1. Minimises negative economic, environmental, and social impacts;
2. Generates greater economic benefits for local people and enhances the well-being of host communities, improves working conditions and access to the industry;
3. Involves local people in decisions that affect their lives and life chances;
4. Makes positive contributions to the conservation of natural and cultural heritage, to the maintenance of the world’s diversity;
5. Provides more enjoyable experiences for tourists through more meaningful connections with local people, and a greater understanding of local cultural, social and environmental issues;
6. Provides access for physically challenged people; and
7. Is culturally sensitive, engenders respect between tourists and hosts, and builds local pride and confidence.

The objectives of the conference were:

1. To create consciousness about social, economic and environment responsibility of tourism industry and how it can be beneficial to the hotel industry in terms of brand, cost effectiveness etc.
2. To create a working group of different stakeholders to formulate a detailed policy for Chandigarh for future.
3. Share information on sustainable architecture.

Amongst the speakers were:

• Mr. Vivek Atray, Director PR, Chandigarh Tourism
• Mr. Pavan Khaitan, President eonEcon Foundation & MD, ABC Paper
• Prof. Anil Laul, Architect, Anangpur Building Centre
• Mr. Manmohan Singh, President, Chandigarh Hotels Group
• Ms. Harveen Kour, Project Manager, eonEcon Foundation

The forum highlighted the importance of environment initiatives, gave an insight into why Responsible Tourism is an important initiative, why sustainability and architecture is important. As a part of the further action plan, hotels will be sent brief guidelines of things that they can adopt as a part of Responsible Tourism programme and also hotels will be addressed and would be a part of working group for making specific policies for Chandigarh hotels to take forward.

Few articles to check:

‘UT tourism industry setting example for whole country’ -Indian Express

Chandigarh Toursim and eonEcon to organize Conference on Tourism-Northern NewsLines

Conference on Responsible Tourism on March 29 -Northern NewsLines blog

UT aims to promote ‘Responsible Tourism’- The Tribune, Chandigarh

Chandigarh Administration and EonEcon Foundation are now working hand in hand towards implementation of Responsible Tourism in Chandigarh. The Cape Town Declaration and other international guidelines have been incorporated in this plan to take it forward effectively.

Chandigarh has 37% of its area under Green-cover. Largely, people associate the term ‘environment’ with Green only. This project will highlight various other factors associated with Environment than just Greenery and trees. Apart from this, various stakeholder participation like the hotel industry, tour operators etc. will lead to multi-dimensional approach towards the entire project. EonEcon Foundation will play the role of policy making and educating the various stakeholders over simple steps. This comes at a very appropriate time, right after one phase of ‘Just Do Your Bit’ campaign has finished.

Further, even schools will become a part of this campaign so that they understand various aspects of environment and tourism.

We will keep updating this page with the latest information on this project.

Over the last month presentations have been carried out in various schools, colleges and organizations. Here is a brief update on the same.

Just Do Your Bit Project

EonEcon meetings have taken an interesting turn since the time we got started. A series of ideas, perspectives and debates have been going on to take the next step forward. For now, the first project aimed at raising awareness about environment and environmental issues amongst the students has kicked off.

Many question the fact that why awareness programmes for school going children when schools have environment education as a part of their curriculum? On the basis of our interaction with a few students as well as Government officials, we found that the understanding of environment and environmental issues was extremely skewed amongst masses and is limited to the green cover only. Apart from that, there seems to be a strange disconnect between people and environment at large. It is referred to in third person as something that they may or may not be bothered about.

The first project that we have started with is ‘Just Do Your Bit!’, whereby we are trying to pass the message to the students through ‘GREEN SHEETS’ that everyone has the power to make a difference and all of us need to start today. The approach has been to try and connect global problems to what is happening in our country. Facts and images of current environment situation in our country and city helps in building a connection and a better understanding amongst the students. An effort has been made to make the students not just understand the kind of actions that they can take and understand why these actions are important and why there is a need for each one of us to step in.

We are covering about 100 schools, colleges and organizations of the city as a part of this programme. The DPI has approved that we can have the same sessions in all the Government schools as well. Alongside, certain companies and organizations are also being approached so that they are also made aware of various environmental issues. Most importantly so that they are able to identify some action steps that they can take at their own end to make a positive impact.

We hope that this endeavour will trigger a change.

World Population is about 6 billion and growing. Our consumption patterns are not sustainable. Each one of us can make our share of difference by adopting better consumption patterns and acting sustainably.

Following is a list of important practical steps which you can take, to make your contribution at an Individual level. Organizations can take this further by not only implementing these steps across the organization, but also by encouraging team members to follow these individual green sheets.

Each one of us has the power to make a difference, start today, and just do your bit!

General:

1. Try and follow the 3 R’s in your consumption patterns:

Reduce
Reuse
Recycle
Recover
Residual management

2. Try to educate and motivate your peers, friends and community to be involved in environment initiatives.
3. Become more involved with environmental concerns and gain knowledge about solutions.

Energy & E-Waste:

1. Replace Normal Bulbs with CFL (Compact Fluorescent Light) or LED Bulbs.
2. Take the initiative and Switch off lights, fans, ACs, TVs and other electronic items in your home & office when not required.
4. Get automatic switches in place like bathroom & supply areas so that they can turn on & off whenever someone enters or leaves
5. Do not keep your appliances at stand by as they still consume electricity when on stand by.
6. Hibernate laptops instead of leaving them at stand by.
7. Prefer not to have any screen-savers.
8. Shut the monitor off, if the computer is not in use for some time.
9. By using 2 inch smaller monitor you can reduce your monitor’s consumption by 30%
10. Use Rechargeable batteries as they last longer.
11. Don’t overcharge Batteries of your cell phones, laptops, cameras etc. as it not only consumes more energy but also reduces the battery life. 12. Use alternative materials like flyash bricks or foamed bricks during construction of buildings/houses as they absorb less heat and bring down the air-conditioning cost considerably.

CFL Bulbs are 70% more efficient, last 10 times longer, come with a 1 year guarantee and 1 bulb replaced will save 150 pounds of carbon dioxide a year.

Home appliances account for 30% of energy usage in industrial countries and 12% of greenhouse gases.

83.9% energy in India comes from burning of fossil fuels, which is a cause of a large amount of carbon emissions.

Only 11% energy is generated from water and the rest from solar, nuclear etc.

Dumping E-waste in landfills, leaks mercury & other harmful substances in the ground and reach the water table and make it toxic.

There are only 2 E-Waste recycling units in India; in Chennai and in Tamil Nadu.

Paper:

1. Avoid taking print out and Photostats if you can do with the electronic version of the documents.
2. Use both sides of the paper for print outs.
3. Use emails to stay in touch.
4. Say NO to ATM receipts, unnecessary magazine or newspaper subscription in print.
5. Use post consumer waste recycled paper.
6. Use Jute bags for shopping instead of paper bags.

Throughout our student lives, we consume loads of paper. But by replacing a tonne of paper with paper made from recycled fibers instead of virgin fibers we could save:

17-31 trees

31780 litres of water

4000KWh of electricity

60 pound of air pollutants

1 ton of uncoated virgin (non-recycled) printing and office paper uses 24 trees
1 ton of 100% virgin (non-recycled) newsprint uses 12 trees
1 ton of coated, higher-end virgin magazine paper more than 15 trees
1 ton of coated, lower-end virgin magazine paper uses nearly 8 trees

According to Market Watch, if everyone in the US would select the no-receipt option at the ATM, it would save a roll of paper more than two billion feet long, or enough to circle the equator 15 times!

Paper manufacturing is the 3rd largest consumer of fossil fuels.

Transportation:

1. Keep the tyres of your vehicles properly inflated.
2. Turn off the engines of your vehicles at traffic lights (more than 100 seconds).
3. Do not exceed speed of 88km/hr as it results in more carbon emissions and decreases the fuel efficiency. 4. Organize car pool program for common destinations.
5. Prefer walking & biking if distance and weather permits.
6. Prefer using video conferencing/ phones/IMs/Conference calls/emails instead of physical meetings.

Turning off the engine of the vehicle at traffic lights can increase fuel efficiency by 3%.

It can also bring down your fuel bills by 12%

Each gallon of gasoline saved keeps 30 pounds of carbon emissions out of atmosphere!

The global passenger car fleet now exceeds 530 million vehicles and is growing by as many as 9 million vehicles annually.

You will save one pound of carbon dioxide per mile you don’t drive!

Plastics:

1. Avoid purchasing bottled water as much as possible or at least reuse the bottles. 2. Reduce usage of plastic bags for buying groceries, use jute bags instead.

Making one million tons of plastic bottles from virgin materials generates 732,000 tons of greenhouse gases.

10 billion bags are produced in a year and each one takes more than 1000 years to decompose.

Go Green:

1. Plant Trees.

A single tree can absorb 1 ton of carbon dioxide in its life time.

Water:

1. Save water by installing low flow shower heads.
2. Don’t keep the water running while brushing your teeth.

One drip per second amounts to 200 gallons of water per month.

If you leave the tap running while brushing you end up wasting about 7 litres of water, daily.

2915 Showerheads Replaced:
2,438,305 gallons of water are saved
731,665 pounds of CO2 is prevented

Air:

1. Say No To Crackers.

Crackers cause rise in SPM levels.

There are numerous health hazards associated with crackers due to the kind of chemicals present in crackers. (Click Here to know more)

1,00,000 children (between 8 to 15 years) work in cracker manufacturing factories each year and fall prey to many health disorders. On an average 10000-20000 kids die or fall prey to serious injuries in these factories.