A couple of months ago we posed this question:

The bottom line is that saving the planet will cost money. But why shouldn't every meeting be green?

It was a post about the InterContinental New York Barclay struggling with how to offer environmentally responsible meetings without charging clients more money. It seemed like a daunting challenge to some of the hotel's managers, who pointed out that some green practices—reusing and storing conference materials to avoid waste, for example—are expensive.

Well, the Barclay heard our question, and took action. This week, the hotel is launching a new initiative called the Green Engage Meeting, which will offer clients sustainable food, beverages, supplies (no plastic water bottles!), and team-building eco-opportunities, including the opportunity to clean up local parks. In line with sustainability projects throughout the hotel, all meetings will recycle paper, compost all organic waste, and use energy efficient bulbs. Among other new developments at the Barclay: the hotel is among the first in New York to be 100 percent wind-powered. Renewable energy certificates, provided by Sterling Planet, offset the hotel's conventional electricity.

What's the big idea here? "Creating green meetings is not that difficult. If you pay attention to not wasting anything and help your customers benefit from it, they will be appreciative," says Herve Houdre, general manager. "Going green is not only our responsibility toward our planet and our communities, but to our customers, too."

I agree: customers shouldn't have to pay more to be green. So why doesn't everybody follow the Barclay's lead?

We are now accepting applications for the 2011 World Savers Awards.

Condé Nast Traveler hosted a World Savers: The Conversation luncheon on September 20, 2010, at the Council on Foreign Relations' Harold Pratt House, and its 5th full-day World Savers Congress on October 20, 2010, in Singapore.

The New York luncheon began with a conversation with Richard Branson, who talked about how we can each make a difference in making the world a better place. Tony Blair, pictured, gave a keynote speech about peace as a vehicle for peace in the Middle East. The event concluded with a panel discussion about Corporate Social Responsibility with management guru Roger Martin, Hilton Global Brands President Paul Brown, and Unilevers CMO Keith Weed.

In Singapore, at the World Savers Congress, leaders from the travel industry and non-profit sector discussed ways to limit environmental impacts, and improve the health, education and economic well-being of the communities worldwide in which we leave our footprints. Featured speakers included Oscar-winning director of The Cove, Louis Psihoyas; Hubert Joly, CEO of Carlson Hotels; K.P. Ho, CEO of Banyan Tree; and Sonu Shivdasani, CEO of Six Senses resort.

For 2011, we're again accepting applications from travel companies in six categories. Click to download the Word-formatted document for each of these categories:

• Airlines
• Camp, Lodge, or Resort
• Chain Hotels
• City Hotels
• Cruise Lines
• Tour Operator

The deadline to send your completed application to ecotourism@cntraveler.com is MONDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2011.

Photo of a clean-water project in Knarong Veas, Cambodia: Journeys Within

Global affairs editor Dorinda Elliott led an illuminating panel Tuesday evening at our travel specialists summit in Las Vegas, during which five experts on corporate sustainability and sustainable travel practices shared successes—and failures—they've had while trying to do the right thing for the communities in which they operate.

Cherri Briggs, of Explore, a safari operator, said that about 20 percent of her clients specifically request to give back during their trips. Andrea Ross, whose Journeys Within Tour Company has worked to provide clean water to more than 8,000 individuals, described her efforts to inform travelers how and why they should want to give back during a trip. Antonia Neubauer's Myths and Mountains has worked to make contributions to her outfit's social programs easily tax deductible, a step she encouraged other operators to adopt. And Marisol Mosquera of Aracari added a poignant observation: "As a Peruvian … I find it to be a moral obligation to help."

Panelists cautioned against looking for easy solutions—a common refrain from sustainable travel experts—but didn't deny that properly managed efforts could make a difference. Said Kimberly Wilson Wetty, of Valerie Wilson Travel: "Travel truly is the greatest educator there is."

I was telling you about the managers' meeting at the Barclay the other day. As managers recounted the progress they have made in developing sustainability initiatives, perhaps the most honest—and telling—report came from David Shenman, a sales and marketing executive who heads the Responsible Meetings committee. It's been a lot harder to launch "green meetings"—offering environmentally responsible ways to hold business meetings in the hotel—than he expected. "Companies all say they want green meetings but that they can't cost more," he said.

Why are "green meetings" more expensive? Shenman lists the following reasons:

• Banquet menus using all organic and local products often are more expensive by approximately 10%. Planners are largely in favor of this, but only if it is at no additional cost to them.
• Renting hybrid cars and buses to transport guests is much better for the environment but also more expensive.
• Re-using meetings materials (re-packing, shipping and storing) is often more expensive than throwing them away and buying new signage and banners the next time. For planners watching their bottom line, it tends to be less costly in the short term to throw leftover meeting materials away.

First of all, it's depressing to hear that companies are still unwilling to make sustainability a top priority. Everyone—from travel companies to you and me—is going to have to understand that for the meantime, being "green," going hybrid and eating organic costs more. But is there anything more important than trying to do right by our planet? The costs will only come down once there is a bigger market for green products. Which means we have to start buying them. Companies should take the lead.

But beyond that, I wonder, is the Barclay taking the wrong approach when it comes to meetings? At this point, it seems to me, hotels can't get away with charging more for being green; environmental responsibility is simply expected. Given the fact that corporations want to be able to show that they are doing business with sustainable suppliers (thanks to shareholder and consumer pressure), the question is, how much business might the Barclay InterContinental lose if it is not able to say that all its meetings are green?

Such a pledge could be defined by the hotel's own responsible operations—reduced use of water and energy, as well as paper, garbage recycling and composting of food waste. The hotel has reduced paper use dramatically, for example, by removing printers and not printing nightly business reports—saving almost four reams of paper a night. It could also introduce measures like using no plastic water bottles, using recycled paper, and green cleaning products.

The bottom line is that saving the planet will cost money. Somebody's got to foot the bill. I suggest that every company—from the Barclay to its corporate clients—should do as much as it can. Why shouldn't every meeting be green?

There's plenty of cynicism about hotels introducing green initiatives. But it's hard to argue that the new education-oriented programs backed by the InterContinental New York Barclay Hotel are about anything but trying to make the world a better place.

I was at an internal meeting at the hotel recently, as various committees reported on their efforts to launch sustainability initiatives. The Barclay's Education Committee's projects are particularly inspiring, starting with a mentoring partnership with a public school on the lower East Side of Manhattan.

With the help of the Barclay, the East Side Community High School, many of whose students come from low-income backgrounds, has set up a Barclay Club for Sophomores and Juniors, giving them behind-the-scenes access to the hotel and its staff.

Last spring, as part of a series of Barclay Club events, more than a dozen kids came to the hotel for a pasta making class with Chef Carmine Marletta, followed by an etiquette lesson, taught at a grand banquet table laid out with multiple wine glasses and fancy china, about table manners. (For anybody who has wondered about whether it's ok to lean your elbows on the table, the takeaway, which the bemused kids repeated out loud in unison: "wrists sometimes; elbows never!")

After reporting on the Barclay Club's activities, Mark Speranza of the hotel's sales and marketing department turned to the committee's latest efforts. "[Barclay general manager Herve] Houdre gave us a new challenge. He said, 'The New York school is great, but what about an international education program?'" Speranza found Hatua Likoni, a youth-led educational program in Kenya that provides support to entrepreneurs and scholarships to needy kids. The Barclay is now raising funds for the program—$3,500 at a special holiday party last week, through tickets and a raffle—and connecting the organization to the East Side High School, which is planning to send school books to Kenya. Says Speranza: "In a place like Kenya, this money goes a long way. This is a great example of new synergies from our Corporate Responsibility efforts." Amen.

Do you ever feel cynical about the corporate world when businesses start talking about sustainability? Well, I do. That's because there's a lot of green washing—read: baloney—out there.

But it was hard to be cynical the other afternoon when Herve Houdre, the general manager and green guru at the InterContinental New York Barclay Hotel gathered his lieutenants to review what the hotel's Corporate Responsibility Committees have achieved in the year since he came on board.

Houdre is leading a mini-cultural revolution in his hotel, a Grand Dame that dates back to the 1920s and hadn't done much about environmental efficiencies and social responsibility before he came along. Sustainability, it turns out, is not a high priority at many New York hotels, but Houdre, with the blessing of his bosses at InterContinental, is trying to put it front and center. (The Grand Hyatt New York and the New York Hilton already have more comprehensive environmental programs in place, but the Barclay is just one year into a process that other hotels began earlier. "I am so thrilled that others are doing great things," Herve told me. "My goal is to entice everyone in the industry to do this. We'll get there!")

Houdre's attitude is that the way to promote progress is to be transparent—to let bosses and guests alike know about his sustainability projects, warts and all. Environmental measurement, for example, has gotten off to a relatively slow start, largely because the hotel's chief engineer left midyear for another job. Nonetheless, Michael Akakpo, the new chief engineer who started implementing InterContinental's Green Engage environmental monitoring system only a few months ago, reported that the hotel so far has changed 85 percent of its lightbulbs to CFLs, saving $60,000 worth of electricity over the year. (There was an internal debate earlier in the year about whether to switch them out or let the old ones burn out first. Houdre swapped them out.)

Akakpo went on to note that the hotel is now composting all its food scraps, and sorting and recycling glass, plastic, metal, and paper. "That's great," said Houdre, dressed in an elegant charcoal pinstriped suit and yellow silk tie (he's French, after all), who personally visited several garbage processing sites before signing the new contract, "but what about our cafeteria—can we put composting bins there, too?" Yes, Mr. Houdre, Akakpo replied. "And can paper napkins be tossed together with the food?" Houdre asked. (Yes again.)

It's not yet clear so far how much water the hotel is saving, because of meter problems. But Trish Sigman, chief accountant, chimed in: "You know, anybody can go on nyc.gov and plug in your address and find out how much water you are saving."

Which is exactly what I did when I got home. Ever since I got back from a reporting trip last summer to Australia, where Cate Blanchett told me she takes 3-minute showers, it's been bothering me that my three sons' daily ablutions seem to take forever. So I looked up water consumption: according to data360, in 2002, Americans used more than 575 liters of water a day, compared to 193 liters in Germany and 15 liters in Cambodia. Surely that can't be sustainable. Thanks to Sigman's suggestion, I'm going to start monitoring my family's water consumption, and see if we can stop using so much.

But that's just the beginning. Next I heard inspiring reports about the Barclay's new social projects, which include a partnership with a local public school to support for organic farms. (Real sustainability, experts say, means that companies focus on both environmental and social impacts of their business.) I will report in future blogposts on the Touch a Heart Committee and the Education Committee. Julieta Swanson, a concierge, raised her hand at the end of the meeting. "These programs in our hotel have totally changed our environment. I feel more involved, more engaged. We employees now feel like we are part of a greater thing." Stay tuned, if you want to get inspired too.

Photo: Flickr/Wolfgang Staudt

Ken Burns and co-writer Dayton Duncan have designed multi-day tours of the National Parks, Civil War battlefields, and the jazz scene in New Orleans with Tauck World Discovery. At a press conference last night at the Park Avenue Armory, Burns said he and Duncan want "to show people what we saw when making our film," adding that these specially designed itineraries, starting with a 10-day trip through the National Parks of the American Southwest, will reveal the parks in a "non-traditional, more nuanced, more intimate way."

The Civil War tours will emphasize the "complicated realities" of that time period. Burns will make a cameo appearance on the Civil War trip next May and the New Orleans trip in October.

"We want visitors to experience these places the way we experienced them as filmmakers," continued Duncan, whose largely responsible for the American Southwest itineraries, and that includes taking flightseeing trips over certain stretches, including Capital Reef's Waterpocket Fold, pictured, or seeing the landscapes in the very best light, primarily at sunrise or sunset. The key difference being, said Duncan, that when you wake up at 3 a.m. to see the sun rise over Bryce, "someone else will drive you there and make sure you have a cup of coffee waiting."

• The Cove's Louie Psihoyos on film's ability to inspire people to save the planet
• The intersection of NGOs and the private sector
• The winners of this year's awards: Micato Safaris, Wilderness Safaris, Guludo Beach Lodge, Alto Hotel on Bourke, and Camp Jabulani
• Stewart Moore from EC3Global on sustainability metrics
• The relationship between the travel industry and surrounding communities
• TDIC's Lee Tabler, KP Ho of Banyan Tree, Sonu Shivdasani of Six Senses, Bill Heinecke of Minor International, and Carlson's Hubert Joly on sustainable travel
• Willie Smits on the sugar palm's power to save Indonesia's rainforests
• The luxury hotel sectors' on communicating sustainability initiatives
• Hotels that are taking on social initiatives—Six Senses Resorts, Africa's &Beyond, and Wilderness Safaris

The sad truth of travel is that most of the world's most popular destinations are also places with some of the biggest health crisis, and, increasingly, the paradox of infinity pools and no clean water for the locals isn't sitting well with travelers. Evan Lewis, Vice President of the Accor hotels in Asia Pacific, says that their guests are starting to demand social initiatives, especially in the developing world. This afternoon, that was the topic of the World Savers Congress final panel, moderated by News Editor Kevin Doyle.

But many other hotel companies aren't doing enough, said Doyle. The exceptions were those companies represented on the panel, including Six Senses Resorts, which donates hundreds of thousands of dollars to local water charities; Africa's &Beyond, which promotes healthy lifestyle and nutrition among its employees; and Wilderness Safaris, which has an HIV/AIDS testing and treatment initiative. But there's clearly still a long way to go. "I think there's a lot more that we can do. And I look forward to the opportunity to making a bigger difference," said Andrew Payne at Wilderness Safari. A great thought on which to end the day's panels.

In the luxury hotel sector, sustainability has become an important trend, but recently perhaps on the verge of faddish. Companies have approached the issue of communicating their initiatives in vastly divergent ways.

At first, Gary Stickland, general manager of Australia's four-year-old Alto Hotel on Bourke, wanted to keep their activities quiet. He said: "We didn't want to shout about it." It's a concern shared by more established, bigger companies says Brigitta Witt, VP, environmental affairs, Hyatt Hotels Corporation. She says that initially it was best not to make a big deal about the company's efforts with clients. "It's a fine line. How do we stay true and do it for the right reason and yet communicate it to our customers?"

For smaller organizations, it's an easier decision to make. From the get-go, Hans Pfister, president of Cayuga Sustainable Hospitality in Costa Rica, found that guests responded positively to the hotel group's eco-friendly practices. It was also an attractive idea for visitors who go on Adine Roode's Camp Jabulani high-end elephant safaris in South Africa.

As Debra Erickson, Executive Director of Kerzner Marine Foundation, found, sustainability is a key issue for affluent, sophisticated travelers. At the end of the day, it's really not about the talk, but about the walk.