Sustainability
Why Sustainability, Why Now
I've always been the person rinsing out the jar and sorting things into the right bin — at home, and even in places where most people don't bother. It's just second nature to me. But for a long time, I didn't connect that instinct to how I thought about travel, or about my business.
That changed when I completed a certification course through LVMH — the parent company behind some of the world's most storied luxury houses — that explored sustainability not as a marketing checkbox, but as a real, structural part of how the best brands operate. Circularity. Traceability. Caring for the land and the people behind the product. It reframed something I thought I already understood.
So this page isn't a claim that Equinox Travel has always been a sustainability leader. It's an honest reflection of where I am now — what I've learned, what I look for in the suppliers I recommend, and how I think about the kind of travel that leaves a place better, not worse, for having been visited.
The LVMH Connection
A number of the suppliers and properties I recommend — Belmond, Cheval Blanc St-Tropez on the Côte d'Azur, Bvlgari Hotels, and others — sit under the umbrella of LVMH, the parent company behind my recent certification course. It's worth understanding why that matters.
LVMH's approach to sustainability isn't really about a single initiative — it's about tracing a product, or an experience, back to its very beginning. In the course, this was described as thinking from "seed to shelf": the soil a vineyard is grown in, the artisan who learned a craft from their parent, the farm that supplies a hotel kitchen, the materials in a hotel renovation — all the way through to the moment a guest experiences the final result. Circularity, traceability, and craftsmanship aren't separate ideas at LVMH — they're the same idea applied at every stage.
That's a different posture than simply offsetting carbon or swapping in LED bulbs, though those things matter too. It's a long view of luxury — one where doing things right at the start means there's less to fix later. That mindset is really what shifted how I think about recommending travel at all.
What This Looks Like in Practice
I don't recommend a supplier just because they have a sustainability page — I look for ones where it's actually built into how they operate.
Uniworld, with whom I'm a Preferred Specialist, is a signatory to the Glasgow Declaration on Climate Action in Tourism and has committed to Net Zero by 2050. Onboard, they've eliminated more than 60 single-use plastics and run a food-waste reduction program through Leanpath — the kind of unglamorous, behind-the-scenes work that actually moves the needle.
AmaWaterways, where I've sailed personally on the Rhine, has earned the Green Award — recognizing European river ships for quality, safety, and environmental performance — across nearly twenty ships in their fleet. They've moved to refillable water bottles and soap dispensers in staterooms, biodegradable containers for excursions, and luggage tags made from recycled plastic. They've also replaced breakfast and lunch buffets with à la carte service, cutting food waste by up to 30 percent — something I noticed myself felt more like dining than a cruise ship buffet line.
PONANT, whose expedition ships carry guests to some of the most remote places on earth, takes a position I respect: they will walk away from a destination entirely if it's overcrowded, over-exploited, or if they can't make a meaningful, positive impact there. Their fleet has earned Green Globe certification, and they've set a target to reduce CO2 emissions by 30% per cruise day by 2030 compared to 2018. Onboard, 100% of waste is sorted, with 60% currently recycled — three times the global average.
Paul Gauguin Cruises, part of the PONANT family and the line I recommend for French Polynesia, carries that same philosophy into the South Pacific. Plastic straws, laundry bags, cups, and single-use food portions are banned onboard, with reusable water bottles given to guests instead. A recent refurbishment added a seawater treatment system that produces the ship's own drinking water, eliminating single-use plastic bottles, along with heat recovery systems and efficient chillers that meaningfully cut energy use.
Belmond, whose trains I love recommending for a slower, more romantic way to move through Europe, has partnered with EarthCheck, the leading scientific benchmarking and certification group for travel and tourism, to monitor resources and track improvements across waste, water, and energy use.
On the hotel side, Hôtel Napoléon in Paris — where I recommend many of my clients stay — is a member of Green Key, reducing single-use plastics throughout the property and skipping the typical disposable toiletries, stirrers, and straws.
Hôtel La Pérouse in Nice is another favorite. Carved into the rock of Castle Hill overlooking the Bay of Angels, this boutique property has earned the Clef Verte (Green Key) label through its optimized resource management, use of local products, and guest awareness initiatives. Its paper materials come from an Imprim'Vert-certified printer using 90% recycled stock, its water is locally sourced and micro-filtered into reusable glass bottles, and its bath products are supplied in dosing dispensers to cut down on waste.
Corinthia London, one of my preferred London properties, takes sustainability seriously across the brand. Corinthia's global sustainability strategy is anchored in their purpose of "Uplifting Lives" — reducing environmental impact through carbon reduction, water conservation, waste minimisation, energy efficiency, sustainable sourcing, and circular renovation practices, alongside fair labour and community support.
This is something I'm continuing to learn about, and I'll keep adding to this page as I do. If sustainability is a priority for your travels, I'm happy to talk through it when we plan your trip.