What is the power of celebrity and how can it be used for good?

These are two big questions that our generation of Millennials have been confronted with in a world that seeks validation from the internet and pop culture.While social media popularity and the value of celebrity image can be used to promote things from retail products, businesses, and even snack foods, influencers can also be used for fighting climate change and spreading the word on sustainability.

This blog highlights a list of celebrities that have taken it upon themselves to utilize their star power for a greater good. These celebrities are actors of change and models of a sustainable mindset for current and future generations.

What is a cigarette filter made out of? The answer is plastic.

Many smokers and non-smokers are now just beginning to realize that cigarette butts have long been our biggest source of forgotten plastic. In this blog, I will discuss the environmental implications of cigarette butt pollution, followed by revelations that I had while taking part in a city-wide cleanup in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

Some say that traveling can heal the soul, but at what cost for the environment? In this blog I’ll discuss what it would take to normalize sustainable choices and how we can encourage tourists to treat destinations as if they were at home.

The European river cruise sector is booming.

The number of active cruise vessels has more than doubled between 2004 and 2017. The growth in cruise tourism has placed a heavy burden on marine environments. As a result, there has been a general rise in customers demanding more responsible and sustainable tourism. To reduce their environmental impacts and to meet the increasing demand for sustainable cruising options, river cruise companies (like Scylla Cruises) have begun to take action.

Read more to find out what Scylla is doing for sustainability in our interview with Scylla’s very own CEO, Arno Reitsma.

The Mandalika Project, a government-mandated project, looking to create a new and sustainable alternative destination to Bali, has inspired some exciting new technologies for eco-sustainability. These new developments, which are looking to be implemented in Bali as well, are intended to make Lombok a sustainable tourism paradise.

The quickly developing island of Lombok is slated to become a fantastic and environmentally sustainable eco-tourism destination through the guidelines put into place by the Indonesian government. This project promises to redefine eco-tourism to bring people closer to a healthier lifestyle and one that is in tune with the natural environment. 

In this interview our team members from Sea Going Green sat down with Amber Westerborg, the Impact Manager of The Student Hotel (TSH) situated a few minute cycle from the heart of Amsterdam, The Netherlands. We asked TSH about their current sustainability projects and operations, how they are engaging staff and guests as well as some tips for other hotels looking to incorporate sustainability into their core business. 

Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, is the talk of the town these days, and no, not just because he is a beloved member of the British Royal family, but because of his new initiative looking to be a driving force for sustainable tourism: Travalyst. 

This past Tuesday in Amsterdam, Prince Harry along with some big names in the travel industry, Booking, Skyscanner, TripAdvisor, Visa and C-Trip, gathered together in ADAM Tower amongst an intimate group of local entrepreneurs and professionals, including our very own Founder and CEO, Ally Dragozet. 

Introducing sustainability into your business can improve efficiency, encourage employee engagement, drive customer loyalty and ultimately boost the bottom line of your business. For offices looking to cut down their CO2 footprints, enhance their waste management strategy, and introduce more sustainable initiatives into the company, luckily there are many new ideas and practices out there.

It can be overwhelming to take the first steps. Where do you start and what are the most effective methods? We’ve put together a list of our top tips for creating a sustainable business that benefits your bottom line. 

When so many people around the world participate in oceanfront or coastal activities as a part of their vacation or every day lifestyle, the morality of understanding how it impacts our ecosystems should be at the forefront of our minds. The first question we should ask ourselves is this: what are the benefits of coastal tourism? And what can we do to ensure that there are more pros than cons?

This week, we’re excited to announce Sea Going Green’s partnership with Aquablu, an innovative water filtration system looking to change the way that we access clean drinking water, leaving bottled water behind in the dust.

Aquablu allows for customers to tap into polluted or otherwise non-drinkable water and filter out micro-plastics, chemicals, antibiotics, heavy metals and more. This technology can even be used on board marine vessels such as cruise ships and luxury boats, which by using this product helps lower their CO2 footprint and mitigates the risk of plastic bottles (and caps) ending up overboard!

Read more about Aquablu in our interview with the founder, Marnix, and see for yourself how this could be a great addition to your home, office or boat!

Can a hotel be luxurious and sustainable at the same time? Is it possible that a hotel with as many as 200 rooms can generate its own electricity? Could a hotel serve as a social hotspot for locals? These are the questions I asked myself before writing this article. 

In this blog, I will highlight the newly constructed Hotel Jakarta Amsterdam in The Netherlands to showcase the forward thinking concepts that they have integrated into their hotel operations including electricity consumption, waste production and other innovative practices that incorporate sustainability.

Read on to see how this hotel embodies the “green future” and provides a quick city-escape without even having to take a plane.

In my last blog “Transitioning from a Tourism-Dependent Region to a Sustainable Paradise: The Caribbean Case Study pt. I” I talked about human pressures on the natural environment in the Caribbean. Even though these pressures are substantial, I think there is a way to turn the most unsustainable tourism-dependent region in the world into a sustainable tourism paradise. In this blog i’ll explain how this can come to be by using the example of Baja, Mexico. 

Did you know that the Caribbean is the most tourism-dependent region on earth? Out of the top 25 countries that have more than 25% tourism contribution to GDP, 15 are located in the Caribbean. The Caribbean Sea is home to around ten percent of the world’s coral reefs, including the largest coral system in the Northern Hemisphere and the highest concentration of marine species in the Atlantic Ocean. With these factors taken into consideration, you can understand why the environment is so important for a thriving tourism sector.

After spending the last two years traveling, working and volunteering in various parts of Southeast Asia, Caitlin found herself fascinated by the explosion in tourism, the spread of Western influence and the impact tourism is having on the local community.

In part II of this blog piece, she will discuss her observations while carrying out fieldwork in Lombok to provide insights on the management and implementation of the Mandalika Project.

Read on to see how local communities are being affected and what prospects lie ahead for the island as it faces rapid development.

Look out Bali, Lombok, the popular tourist destination’s neighboring island, is slated to become Asia’s new tourism hotspot. The new Indonesian-Government mandated “Mandalika Project” will aim at building tourism infrastructure and bringing development to the island, but at what cost? This two-part blog series will look into how tourism has already changed the face of Indonesia as well as what can be expected in terms of future changes to the economic and community aspects of Lombok.

The superyacht industry isn’t the most environmentally friendly of industries and it often receives negative press when it comes to sustainability, from the endless single use plastic, the food miles consumed to the huge emissions.

Quite simply, it is an industry which relies on the health of our oceans and without them, cannot exist. In recent years, there has been an increase in environmental awareness and changing attitudes within the industry.

The process for change is happening in many ways but one is down to the power of the individual, individual yacht crew making changes to the daily operations of the yacht and taking responsibility for the yachts environmental footprint to provide long lasting benefits. So, what are the steps in which yacht crew can take to flip unsustainable practices onboard? Continue reading to find out!

River cruises are becoming increasingly popular, which creates many new opportunities as well as challenges along with it.

In Europe alone, 1.4 million passengers took a river cruise in 2018, a number that’s rising annually. The kind of growth that we’ve seen from cruise tourism has placed a large burden on the marine environment. As a result, we have generally seen a rise in the trend of customers demanding for more responsible and sustainable tourism. To meet the increasing demand for sustainable cruising options, river cruise companies are starting to think about their environmental impact while finding ways on how to reduce it.

In this blog, you’ll find a list of 11 suggested practices that we’ve compiled to help make river cruising more sustainable!

While getting ready for a long awaited vacation, you know all the tricks for packing light and smart - but what about packing zero waste? Tourism is one of the biggest industries in the world and it has a significant impact on our environment. By making small changes while traveling, you can help cut down your plastic waste footprint and make your tourist behavior more sustainable. Continue reading this article for some useful tips and tricks!

Have you heard of the #trashtag challenge? Around the world locals and tourists have come together to clean up parks, rivers and beaches, giving them new life.

This week, we’ll be featuring Scuba Projects, an initiative to spread awareness about ocean conservation while engaging the local community to lead the charge towards stopping plastic pollution by taking part in cleanups! If you haven’t already, check out their viral cleanup video here, which was one of many cleanups that they hosted across the country of Vietnam.

Keep reading to hear more about how Scuba Projects was founded, what their reception has been like so far and their future ambitions and projects!

Did you know that almost every piece of plastic ever made is still on the planet in some form or another? Plastic production globally is expected to be more than 3 hundred million tons. By 2050, when the population explodes to almost 10 billion people, it’s expected that plastic production will triple. The problem with that is that today, only a fraction of the plastic we produce is recycled.

In this week’s blog, we’ll take a look at 6 different brands that are incorporating marine plastics into their practices and retail products. We hope that this will inspire more brands to use ocean plastic in the creation of their products!