Tourism is a continuously growing industry and its environmental sustainability has been increasingly recurring in Local Agenda 21 and in the development policies of many countries. Although several studies have focused on so-called Sustainable Tourism, few of them are based on LCA. In order to investigate the reasons for this limited implementation of LCA in the tourism industry, the Authors briefly analyze the findings of an LCA case-study they carried out on the lodging service provided by an Italian hotel. Particular attention is given to methodological approaches and problems, including difficulties in scope definition, lack of specific databases and of methodologies to assess local environmental impacts. On this basis, the Authors firstly attempt to define a number of activities to improve LCA effectiveness for the tourism industry and secondly, they discuss the role of LCA in the framework of Sustainable Tourism. Particular emphasis is given to the effectiveness of LCA as a support-tool for decision-making processes in environmental policies, and for assessing the environmental performance of tourist services. Moreover, LCA could also be used as a key-method for environmental certification, such as EPD and European EcoLabel, and to support the information and education of travellers on environmental themes.
LCA: a key-tool for sustainable tourism?
DE CAMILLIS, CAMILLO;PETTI, Luigia;RAGGI, Andrea
2008-01-01
Abstract
Tourism is a continuously growing industry and its environmental sustainability has been increasingly recurring in Local Agenda 21 and in the development policies of many countries. Although several studies have focused on so-called Sustainable Tourism, few of them are based on LCA. In order to investigate the reasons for this limited implementation of LCA in the tourism industry, the Authors briefly analyze the findings of an LCA case-study they carried out on the lodging service provided by an Italian hotel. Particular attention is given to methodological approaches and problems, including difficulties in scope definition, lack of specific databases and of methodologies to assess local environmental impacts. On this basis, the Authors firstly attempt to define a number of activities to improve LCA effectiveness for the tourism industry and secondly, they discuss the role of LCA in the framework of Sustainable Tourism. Particular emphasis is given to the effectiveness of LCA as a support-tool for decision-making processes in environmental policies, and for assessing the environmental performance of tourist services. Moreover, LCA could also be used as a key-method for environmental certification, such as EPD and European EcoLabel, and to support the information and education of travellers on environmental themes.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
