Life Cycle Thinking used for assessing the environmental impacts of tourism activity for a Greek tourism destination

Journal of Cleaner Production xxx (2015) 1e12

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Life Cycle Thinking used for assessing the environmental impacts of tourism activity for a Greek tourism destination Alexandra V. Michailidou a, *, Christos Vlachokostas a, b, Nicolas Moussiopoulos a, Dimitra Maleka a a b

Laboratory of Heat Transfer and Environmental Engineering, Aristotle University, Thessaloniki, Box 483, 54124 Thessaloniki, Greece MECO P.C., Technopolis Thessaloniki ICT Business Park, 55535 Pylaia, Greece

a r t i c l e i n f o

a b s t r a c t

Article history: Received 22 July 2014 Received in revised form 21 September 2015 Accepted 22 September 2015 Available online xxx

This work puts forward a generic methodological scheme, based on Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) principles, in order to estimate the environmental load in areas of considerable tourism activity. The possibility of combing LCA with Ecological Footprint Analysis (EFA), Environmental Indicators (EIs) and Multi-criteria analysis (MCA) is also discussed. The methodology is demonstrated for Chalkidiki, an area with considerable tourism activity in Greece and one of the prevalent destinations in the Balkan peninsula. A comparative assessment is realized for characteristic hotel categories. Their respective contribution to environmental burden attributed to tourists' transport and accommodation services is assessed. Up-market hotels impose larger absolute impacts on the environment (6e10 times), especially in the consumption of resources, when transport (and especially air one) is taken into account. As far as operational use of all hotels is concerned, HVAC systems are the most energy intensive “end-users”. It is noted that some up-market hotels with the largest absolute carbon footprint have already been nominated with the Green Key in the area under study. Based on the results of this study, policy making should primarily put forward incentives in order to maximize the penetration of: (i) Renewable Energy Sources (RES) in hotels in the area, (ii) vehicles with biofuels in the hotels' fleet and (ii) local products in dining sector. This work adds up to the low number of respective LCA implementations found in the literature and extents the scope of LCA application to a new tourism destination. The adopted approach and the results presented herein add scientific value, since they provide the basis for the identification of environmental “hot spots” in order to highlight processes with considerable environmental impacts and promote the implementation of effective mitigation measures by hoteliers and public authorities. The work clearly depicts the fact that LCA can play a crucial role in decreasing the complexity in the strategic planning of tourism, especially in local-to-regional areas of concentrated tourism activities. The holistic approach presented provides a basis for policy insights that can lead to robust policy modeling and reliable national strategic governance. © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Environmental impacts Carbon footprint Eco-indicator 99 CML 2001 Hotels Transport

1. Introduction Tourism is a dynamic and competitive industry with direct effects on the social, cultural, educational and economic aspects of communities, thus a key driver for socio-economic progress. International tourist arrivals grew by 5% in 2013, reaching a record of 1087 million arrivals and international tourism receipts reached 1159 billion US$ (UNWTO, 2014). According to the World Travel &

* Corresponding author. Tel.: þ30 2310 994181; fax: þ30 2310 996012. E-mail address: [email protected] (A.V. Michailidou).

Tourism Council, the Travel & Tourism (T&T) sector accounts for 9% of direct global Gross Domestic Product (GDP) offering 120 million direct jobs and another 125 million indirect jobs worldwide. On the other hand, tourism is associated with environmental impacts and contributes to the climate change phenomenon. Tourism can affect detrimentally the natural environment in local as well global scale, through transport, accommodation and relevant activities € ssling, 2002). On this basis, it is important for the tourism in(Go dustry to consider its environmental impacts since it is largely dependent on the natural environment (clean water, clean air, pleasant weather, ecosystem quality). Over the last years, the scientific community has focused on the impacts of climate change on

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Please cite this article in press as: Michailidou, A.V., et al., Life Cycle Thinking used for assessing the environmental impacts of tourism activity for a Greek tourism destination, Journal of Cleaner Production (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2015.09.099

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A.V. Michailidou et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production xxx (2015) 1e12

tourism and the tourism industry response to climate change (e.g. € ssling, 2010; Peeters and Becken, 2013; Filimonau et al., 2011a; Go Dubois, 2010; Scott et al., 2008; Amelung et al., 2007). Furthermore, many experts underlined the importance of accurate quan€ ssling et al., tification of tourism's environmental impacts (e.g. Go 2005; Patterson and McDonald, 2004). An in-depth analysis of environmental impacts of tourism can €ssling, 2002). Attempts to sysbe found analytically elsewhere (Go tematically evaluate them are mainly limited to a small number of environmental assessment tools (Filimonau et al., 2011a), i.e. Ecological Footprint Analysis (EFA) (e.g. Hunter and Shaw, 2007), Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) (e.g. Geneletti and Dawa, 2009), Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) (e.g. De Camillis et al., 2008) and Environmental Indicators (EI) (e.g. Michailidou et al., 2015). These approaches possess different strengths and weaknesses depending on the scale of application (global or local), the characteristics of the tourism destinations, the objective and the accuracy of the assessment (Schianetz et al., 2007). The application of LCA in tourism has recently gained acceptance by the scientific community (De Camillis et al., 2010). According to available scientific literature, amongst other environmental performance tools for tourism, LCA is crucial, since it holistically evaluates environmental impacts from different perspectives and assumptions (e.g. Castellani and Sala, 2012; De Camillis et al., 2010). LCA is a holistic approach to assess potential impacts associated with a product, process, or service, by compiling an inventory of relevant energy, material inputs and environmental releases and interpreting the results to help a decision-maker to make a better informed decision (Curran, 2012). The first application of LCA in the tourism sector provided an environmental assessment of a package holiday in the Seychelles offered by British Airways Holidays (Sisman, 1993), followed by a holiday package in St. Lucia offered by the same provider (UK SEED, 1998). Rosenblum et al. (2000) used LCA to trace direct and indirect supply chain environmental effects of hotel service sector in the USA. Chambers (2004) assessed two package holidays in Bulgaria (one mass tourism package and one responsible tourism package), ra et al. (2004) applied LCA to hotels in Italy. Ko € nig et al. whereas Sa (2007) performed LCA of hotel buildings under development in Portugal. De Camillis et al. (2008) assessed the environmental performance of accommodation services in a 3-star hotel in Italy. Kuo et al. studied a package holiday in Kinmen Island, Taiwan (2008) and a package holiday in Penghu Island, Taiwan (2009). Filimonau and colleagues applied LCA to provide linkages with the carbon footprint of two hotels in Poole, Dorset, UK (2011a) and for climate change impact assessment related to tourism (2011b). Castellani and Sala (2012) used LCA to assess impacts generated by one tourist during one week in a spa resort and of impacts of a hospitality structure (a 2-star hotel) in Northern Italy. Kuo et al. (2012) used LCA to explore energy use and Carbon Dioxide (CO2) emissions in three Taiwanese islands (Penghu, Kinmen and Green islands). Filimonau et al. assessed the carbon impact of short-haul tourism from London to Marseille considering five different travel scenarios (2013) and of an all-inclusive holiday package tour from UK to Portugal (2013), using a hybrid method of LCA, the DEFRALCA. El Hanandeh (2013) applied LCA to assess the Global Warming Potential (GWP) during Hajj (the pilgrimage to Mecca). The present study aims to promote a generic methodological scheme, based on LCA principles, in order to estimate the environmental burden in areas of considerable tourism activity. The methodology is demonstrated for Chalkidiki, an area with considerable tourism activity in Greece. Apart from economic development, tourism activity in the area causes considerable environmental deterioration, increased energy and water consumption, as well as waste generation. A comparative assessment

for characteristic hotel categories and their respective contribution to environmental burden for numerous impacts is analytically realized for hotel operation and both for road and air transport that can be attributed to tourism activity. The approach is leading to a reliable and holistic assessment of damage that can be attributed to tourists' transport, and accommodation services. This work adds up to the low number of respective LCA implementations found in the literature (De Camillis et al., 2010) and provides evidence on the way LCA can be used in the context of Greece, since such a methodological framework is implemented for the first time in Greece, at least up to the authors' knowledge. On this basis, the work herein extents the scope of LCA application to a new destination. In addition, the adopted approach and the results presented herein add value, since they provide the basis for the identification of environmental “hot spots” in order to highlight processes with considerable environmental impacts and promote the implementation of effective mitigation measures that can be adopted by hoteliers and public authorities. To amplify this purpose the possibility of integration with other environmental impact assessment and management tools is discussed in an extended methodological framework. Thus, the work provides a holistic approach for the area under study and gives a basis for policy insights that can lead to robust policy modeling and reliable national strategic governance. 2. Materials and methods 2.1. The significance of LCA in the tourism sector LCA is useful in quantifying the extraction of resources and emissions of a product system or process to air, water and land and their associated impacts, enabling the identification of “hot-spots” in the life cycle and therefore identifies opportunities for improvements and optimization of environmental aspects and processes at all stages of their lifecycle (Muthu, 2014). It has the ability to highlight processes and/or flows that have the highest resource consumption and the highest environmental burden in an effort to accurately assess environmental impacts (De Camillis et al., 2012). In parallel, it estimates also the “indirect” environmental impacts (Berners-Lee et al., 2011 and Frischknecht et al., 2007), which is one of the competitive advantages of LCA over other environmental assessment tools. In addition, LCA allows the definition of end-tolife scenarios for products and services as well as multiple functions of an ecosystem (UNEP, 2014). The comprehensiveness of LCA makes it an appealing stand-alone tool among Ecological Footprint Analysis (EFA), Environmental Indicators (EIs) and Multi-criteria analysis (MCA). According to literature review these tools are employed in order to assess environmental deterioration in the tourism sector. Literature review also reveals that the EFA, EIs and MCA have been employed in combination with LCA due to its advantages. According to Finnveden and Moberg (2005), LCA integration/combination with other environmental tools puts forward a holistic analysis that can lead to realistic strategies toward environmental sustainability. Ecological Footprint is a synthetic indicator used to estimate a population's impact on the environment due to its consumption. It quantifies the land use required for population activities taking place on the biosphere while considering the prevailing technology and resource management for a specific year (Borucke et al., 2013; Bastianoni et al., 2012). EFA accounts for energy (including transport), raw materials, water, foodstuff use, waste production (including CO2 from fossil fuels) and the loss of productive land associated with buildings, roads and other aspects of the built environment. EFA takes into account the concept of limited resources and the carrying capacity of the earth's ecosystems, which is useful for understanding resource use in relation to availability.

Please cite this article in press as: Michailidou, A.V., et al., Life Cycle Thinking used for assessing the environmental impacts of tourism activity for a Greek tourism destination, Journal of Cleaner Production (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2015.09.099

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This is the main reason that EFA has been used in relation to tourism in: (i) Different types of tourism accommodation (e.g. Castellani and Sala, 2012; Castellani and Sala, 2008), (ii) Tourism destinations (e.g. Marzouki et al., 2012; Jiang, 2009; Bagliani et al., 2008; Patterson et al., 2008, 2007; Peeters and Schouten, 2006; € ssling et al., 2002; Becken, 2001; Cole and Sinclair, 2002), (iii) Go Different types of tourism e.g. ecotourism, event tourism (e.g. Collins et al., 2012, 2009, 2007; Hunter and Shaw, 2006), (iv) Different travel choices (e.g. Rendeiro Martín-Cejas and Pablo nchez, 2010; Dolnicar et al., 2010), (v) Holiday packRamírez Sa ages (e.g. Peng and Guihua, 2007; Chambers, 2004), (vi) Tourism activities (e.g. Ortega et al., 2013), (viii) Contribution of the different components of tourism to global climate change (Filimonau et al., € ssling, 2002). Apart from its advantages, EF has a num2011a; Go ber of limitations, which can be found in the literature. It does not take into account the possibility of recovery of land use after the end of its useful life, the multiple functions of an ecosystem, and the renewability of natural resources (Fiala, 2008). In addition, direct impact of land use on species loss is not included and water is considered to the extent that water availability is related to bioproductivity (Lee et al., 2014). EF has not been recommended as a stand-alone, comprehensive indicator of either environmental impact or resource use (Best et al., 2008; Wiedmann and Barrett, 2010). LCA has valuable potential for improving EFA (Kitzes et al., 2009; Sala and Castellani, 2009). Hunter and Shaw (2007) pointed out that collecting primary data from specific LCA studies of each consumption activity is crucial for ensuring robustness of EFA. Because of limitations in its scope, EF is insufficient on its own for decision-making (Lee et al., 2014). EIs are designed to collect, process and use information aiming at making better decisions, at driving smarter political choices, and at measuring progress (Wilson et al., 2007). Because of its systemic approach, LCA can scientifically support the reliable calculation of indicators throughout the entire life cycle of a tourism service, providing more cohesive and consistent indicators (Finnveden et al., 2009). The combination of LCA and EIs has been applied to some extent in the literature. Zobel et al. (2002) suggested that LCA inventory data can be aggregated into impact categories to be used as performance indicators for processes. In addition, LCA of processes can reveal environmental impact of components of processes, which otherwise might be overlooked (Verbeeck and Hens, 2010). This is also the case in the work of Michailidou et al. (2015), where a discrete composite indicator (Tourism Environmental Composite Indicator e TECI) for analysis of combined environmental pressure in a Defined Area of Concentrated Tourism (DACT) was formulated. TECI combines five main categories of environmental pressure (pressure-oriented approach) attributed to a DACT, through different normalized key performance sub-indices for each category: (i) energy-oriented, (ii) water-oriented, (iii) wasteoriented, (iv) carbon footprint-oriented (hotels) and (v) carbon footprint-oriented (transport). LCA was used as a tool for the estimation of the two carbon footprint (CO2-eq) emissions sub-indices. One issue should be raised at this point. In contrast to the work of Michailidou et al. (2015), the work herein is based on LCA in order to: (i) estimate the environmental burden emanating mainly from hotels, (ii) identify environmental accommodation “hot spots” to highlight multiple impacts (impact-oriented approach) and (iii) promote the implementation of effective mitigation measures that can be implemented on hotel premises and local transport sector. The methodological scheme presented herein clearly reveals the advantages of LCA employment and can be used by hotel managers/ owners in order to reduce their environmental impact, while TECI regards the evaluation of environmental loads of all tourism activities in a wider tourism area (DACT), which essentially implies a larger scale of application. It should be noted that carbon footprint

3

normalized sub-indices included in the TECI formulation for accommodation and transport can be calculated by other approaches (e.g. through emission factors/activity rates). However, LCA gives the ability to (i) easily calculate all direct and indirect GHGs' emissions as CO2-eq through CML 2001, by avoiding complex equations for each GHG, (ii) recognize the carbon intensive processes/services due to hotels' operation and thus introduce more effective practices for lower emissions. Although the data used in both case studies origin from the same area (Chalkidiki, Greece), the work herein essentially differs from the work of Michailidou et al. (2015) in the generic methodological framework (basic structure and components), application scale and sample size. MCA is a generic term for methods that assist decision-makers in cases where multiple opinions are involved and more than one conflicting criterion exists. It is most applicable to solving problems characterized of a choice among alternatives, as it can deal with mixed sets of data, quantitative and qualitative, including expert opinions. MCA techniques can be used to: (i) identify a single most preferred option (consensus), (ii) rank options, (iii) short-list a limited number of options for subsequent detailed appraisal, or (iv) simply distinguish acceptable from unacceptable possibilities (Belton and Stewart, 2002). According to literature, coupling MCA with LCA is robust and, at the same time, easy to implement (Recchia et al., 2011). MCA has been combined with LCA in order to (i) aggregate LCA impact categories (e.g. Hermann et al., 2007; Benoit and Rousseaux, 2003) and (ii) assign weights to impact categories (e.g. Pineda-Henson and Culaba, 2004; Pineda-Henson et al., 2002), providing the ability to better assess a specified area according to its special characteristics, strengths and weaknesses. Combination of LCA with the three aforementioned environmental assessment tools can provide a robust linkage with decision-making. Environmental sustainability is all about mitigating impact, which makes the combination of LCA with other assessment tools meaningful and beneficial. Due to the aforementioned advantages, the methodological framework presented in this work is based on LCA principles. The methodological approach presented is capable to determine objectively where the main hotspots for improvement are i.e. that is where the impact is higher. In the material to follow, the real-life case study for the tourism area of Chalkidiki is presented. LCA is applied in this study to inventory and quantify the environmental load of tourism in the area under consideration, since it can provide a more detailed information to decision-makers compared to other environmental assessment tools. Specific implications for policy making are also discussed. 2.2. Methodological approach: basic structure and components LCA is carried out in four distinct phases (ISO-14040, ISO14044): (i) Goal and scope definition, (ii) Life-cycle inventory (LCI), (iii) Life-cycle impact assessment (LCIA) and (iv) Interpretation. A number of impact assessment methods for quantification of the environmental performance of a product, process or service are available. In the LCIA, inventory data is aggregated into specific environmental impact categories according to a method. LCIA methods can be single-category (e.g. primary energy) or multicategory, with specific sets of impact categories. Multi-category LCIA methods can be problem-oriented or damage-oriented. Damage-oriented methods, such as the Eco-indicator 99, model the causeeeffect chain up to the endpoints. Three damage categories are distinguished: Human Health, Ecosystem Quality and Resources (Table 1). Multiple endpoint indicators are combined in one single indicator to provide a robust assessment. Endpoint indicators represent the consequences of negative environmental impacts to humans and ecosystems and are the “endpoint” of a

Please cite this article in press as: Michailidou, A.V., et al., Life Cycle Thinking used for assessing the environmental impacts of tourism activity for a Greek tourism destination, Journal of Cleaner Production (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2015.09.099

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Table 1 Damage, impact categories, normalization and weighting factors and indicators of Eco-indicator 99 Impact Assessment method. Damage

Weighting factor (%)

Normalization factor

Impact Category

Weighting factor (%)

Indicator

Human Health

40

1.41$102

40

1.748$104

Resources

20

1.325$104

5.2 27.8 0.2 6.2 0.1 0.6 6.3 2.9 30.8 0.4 19.6

DALY/kg emission

Ecosystem Quality

Carcinogenic effect Respiratory effects (organics) Respiratory effects (inorganics) Climate change Radiation Ozone depletion Ecotoxicity Acidification/Eutrophication Land use Minerals Fossil fuels

PAF∙m2∙year/kg emission PDF∙m2∙year/kg emission PDF∙m2∙year/m2 Surplus energy per kg mineral or ore at future extraction Surplus energy per MJ, kg or m3 fossil fuel at future extraction

DALY: Disability Adjusted Life Years. PAF: Potentially Affected Fraction. PDF: Potentially Disappeared Fraction.

possible chain of causes and effects. Normalization is performed on damage category level and it is dependent on the chosen perspective. In the hierarchist perspective (chosen in this study) the chosen time perspective is long-term and substances are included if there is consensus regarding their effect. One of the advantages of Eco-indicator 99 is the single score output (expressed in kilo points (kPt)) that enables the comparative analysis of different components of a product/service or different products/ services. Problem-oriented methods, such as the CML 2001, have midpoint impact categories and relevant indicators to model cases at an early stage in the cause-effect chain. This means that CLM indicators aggregate data on emissions (the starting points in the cause-effect chain) to potential impacts in various categories (e.g. global warming, acidification, etc.), but do not go as far as to assess the endpoints, such as loss of biodiversity, damage to human health, etc., caused by these impacts (WRAP, 2008). Each impact category (Table 2) is characterized by a midpoint indicator which uses a defined reference substance to quantify the impact of a classified emission in relation to the reference substance. CML method has different sets of normalization. The step of normalization calculates the magnitude of impact category result of the e investigated system in relation to reference information (Guine et al., 2002). CML provides detailed information about several environmental impact categories. The Global Warming Potential (GWP100) indicator, expressed in kg of CO2-eq., is the indicator used from CML 2001 which closely correlates to energy use (Blengini, 2009), and has been considered as a measure of the Greenhouse Effect according to IPCC. LCA implementation can be facilitated using relevant software and its corresponding impact assessment methods. The functional unit must be initially defined, which measures the function of the system under study and provides a reference to which the inputs

and outputs can be related. The appropriate functional unit for LCA of services within the tourism sector is more difficult to define than any other industry. The most common functional units used in similar studies are one “guest night” (Filimonau et al., 2011b), e.g. a night spent by one tourist in one accommodation building, and one week of a holiday including transport services to reach and leave the destination (Castellani and Sala, 2012). As a next step, the system boundaries and limitations should be defined. The system boundaries determine processes to be included in the LCA study i.e. boundaries between the technological system and nature, geographical area, time horizon etc. SimaPro 8 software is used in the approach presented herein. SimaPro provides access to a large amount of licensed LCI data and the Ecoinvent database (included in the software) provides information on many different impact assessment methods (Fig. 1). The generic methodological scheme that it is put forward in the framework of this analysis is illustrated in Fig. 2. The status of the environmental quality should be considered as a criterion in order to focus on an area of concentrated tourism activities within a wider geographical area of consideration. Thus, the number of tourists that could be exposed to deteriorated environment, both in the accommodation facilities (static agents) and in transport and recreation activities (dynamic agents) should be included in the analysis. In addition, the “tourism mass”, i.e. the number of tourists compared to local population, should be considered due to the fact that tourists are also part of environmental deterioration in tourism areas. Hotels are the most important agents of “static” environmental burden in the tourism sector. Although significant enough, the energy, water, resource consumption and waste generation in hotels is highly diversified and depends on a variety of parameters such as the size and category/class of the hotel, the year and type of construction, its location and climatic zone, technology of heating,

Table 2 Impact categories, normalization factors and indicators of CML 2001 Impact Assessment method. Impact categories Abiotic depletion Global warming (100a) Stratospheric ozone depletion (40a) Human toxicity (100a) Fresh water aquatic ecotoxicity (100a) Marine ecotoxicity (100a) Terrestrial ecotoxicity (100a) Acidification Eutrophication Photo-oxidant formation

Normalization factor 10

5.85$10 3.96$1012 1.09$106 5.35$1012 1.55$1010 8.62$1011 5.81$109 1.49$109 1.99$109 5.49$109

Indicator kg kg kg kg kg kg kg kg kg kg

Sb eq/kg extraction CO2 eq/kg emission CFC-11 eq/kg emission 1.4-DB eq/kg emission 1.4-DB eq/kg emission 1.4-DB eq/kg emission 1.4-DB eq/kg emission SO2 eq/kg emission PO4 3 eq/kg emission C2H4 eq/kg emission

Please cite this article in press as: Michailidou, A.V., et al., Life Cycle Thinking used for assessing the environmental impacts of tourism activity for a Greek tourism destination, Journal of Cleaner Production (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2015.09.099

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Fig. 1. Technical phases for the implementation of LCA.

ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC), the lighting systems, as well as the offered services, amenities and the occupancy rate (Deng, 2003). On this basis it is beneficial to choose characteristic types of different hotels in the selected area of study, especially in terms of the size and category/class in order to acquire input data for the LCA application. It should be underlined that this is not a trivial stage of the methodological scheme, since most hotels monitor only their overall energy consumption without a detailed monitoring of various energy flows to the different end-users. For this purpose, the consumption of energy and water, occupancy rates, and other important characteristics of one hotel's operational phase should be investigated through tractable questionnaires during personal interviews with the hotel managers and hotel records. In any case, any other data for flows should meticulously investigated for the area under consideration, especially to define “tourism mass” and in effort to provide assessments for “dynamic” environmental burden that origin mainly from air and road transport to the destination and back and recreation activities (e.g. national statistical services). Approaching hotel managers is crucial in order to collect data from hotels. Toward this aim a close link with the local hotel association(s) should be established in order to choose characteristic cases of hotels in the area. In addition, this collaboration is fruitful in order to make a list of contacts of hotel managers, collaborate smoothly with them and define a list of tractable questions to synthesize a questionnaire. This is of importance in order to reliably collect input data for the LCA implementation. In order to test the appropriateness of the questions, a pre-test procedure should be conducted under the coordination of the local hotel association in order to assess the comprehensibility of the composed “draft”

questionnaire and the probable effectiveness of the extracting data from hotel managers. Essential introductory information should be provided to the hotel managers synoptically combined with a LCA brief description of principles. Emphasis to simplicity of the questionnaire is crucial, considering the fact that most hoteliers do not possess scientific expertise. Comprehensibility is a top priority in the approach presented (Fig. 2), since a comprehensible, tractable but also adequate questionnaire would significantly increase the possibility of reliable responses and thus reliable input data to the LCA. After the required improvements and modifications, the final questionnaire is used to extract the hotel's data. A statistical analysis is also required in order to process the corresponding data of the hotels' sample and highlight representativeness. The input data is embedded, after post-processing, in the LCA approach depicted in Fig. 2. 3. Case study Chalkidiki belongs to the Region of Central Macedonia and has the longest coastline (550 km) from all land prefectures of Greece. The nearest airport that serves tourism activity in Chalkidiki is the International Airport “Macedonia”. Chalkidiki has 511 of 1*e5* hotels, corresponding to 5% of the hotels of the whole country. The number of international tourists was over 523,000 in 2012 (EL.STAT, 2014). The area is characterized by high “tourism mass” compared to the permanent residents, and numerous agents of “dynamic” environmental burden, especially transport for accommodation and recreational purposes. In an effort to promote Life Cycle Thinking (LCT) principles and approach characteristic cases of all-sized hotels in the area, the

Please cite this article in press as: Michailidou, A.V., et al., Life Cycle Thinking used for assessing the environmental impacts of tourism activity for a Greek tourism destination, Journal of Cleaner Production (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2015.09.099

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A.V. Michailidou et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production xxx (2015) 1e12

Fig. 2. Holistic framework for the assessment of the overall environmental burden in tourism areas.

questionnaire (according to the methodology in Fig. 2) was prepared. In order to implement LCA for the area under consideration, 6 cases of seaside hotels were meticulously examined in close collaboration with local stakeholders and a tourism agency, as representative for each hotels' category in order to study characteristic all-sized hotels in the area. The criteria of representativeness were mainly category, seasonal operation, no of rooms/beds, occupancy rate, surface area energy, and water consumption parameters. Tourism agencies' role was consider necessary in order to gain a more thorough knowledge of the dominant tourism actors as well as the weaknesses of the area. With their help, the first draft of the questionnaire necessary for the pre-test procedure was structured and facilitated the approach of hotel managers. The characteristics of each hotel are presented in Table 3. As it is described in the methodological section, for the case under study, SimaPro 8 software was used and the impact assessment methods chosen are Eco-indicator 99 and CML 2001. Having in mind that the data were provided for a seasonal operation of

each hotel (6e12 months), and given that there is high variability especially in occupancy rates, in tourists' country of origin and in monthly consumption (e.g. in August there is increased demand of energy since the occupancy rate could reach 98%), the functional unit of the system under study is defined as one week of a holiday including transport services to reach and leave the destination. The 7-night stay of tourists in hotels is characterized as typical in the Chalkidiki area (Hellenic Chamber of Hotels, 2014). The system boundary includes the operational use of a hotel including the water consumption and the energy consumption for: (i) the HVAC systems, (ii) production of hot water, (iii) kitchen operation, e.g. cooking appliances, refrigerators, freezers etc., (iv) laundry facilities, (v) lighting, and (vi) other electrical devices e.g. TV's, refrigerators in rooms, cleaning devices, and elevators. The travel of tourists from their original place to the hotel and their return is also taken into account in the system boundaries. Waste generation is excluded from this study since the hotels studied did not hold such records (typical for the area under study). Although hotel 6 is a 5* hotel (similarly to 5), it is also examined due to its considerable larger size compared to all other hotels and in an effort to look into to the whole spectrum of hotel sizes in the area. Data for “tourism mass” were taken from EL.STAT (2014) for the reference year 2012. This information is crucial to provide assessments for typical “dynamic” environmental burden that origin from air and road transport to Chalkidiki and back. Two typical travel services were examined: (1) Hotels 1, 2, and 3, are small hotels (No. of beds 32, 34, 32 respectively) and their international customers' origin from Balkan countries according to hotels' records. Thus, those tourists reach their destination by car, (2) in hotels 4, 5 and 6 tourists come from Europe. According to EL.STAT (2014) in 2012, 65% of international tourists came from Russia (27.5%), Central Europe (20%), UK (11%), Romania (2.5%), whereas the rest 4% came from the rest of the European countries and the rest of the world. Those tourists traveled with airplane to International Airport “Macedonia” in Thessaloniki and then reached their hotel by coach or a car, according to those hotels' records, since the transportation by coach is operated by them. The rest 35% of international tourism came from Balkan countries and used mainly their car to reach their destination. For the road transport analysis, a petrol car EURO 4 with average occupancy of 3 passengers is assumed for tourists visited hotels 1, 2 and 3, according to hotels' records whereas for tourists of hotel 4, 5 and 6 a coach for their transportation from airport and back is taken into consideration. Flight distances were calculated from major airports near capital of each country to International Airport “Macedonia”. 4. Results and discussion A fully detailed “network of activities” for each hotel was created to assess their overall environmental burden. According to the Eco-Indicator 99 impact assessment method, in case of operational use of hotels and road transport is taken into account (excluding air transport), the operational use is for the most part responsible for the total environmental damage for all hotels under consideration except hotel 1 (Fig. 3). For the case of hotel 1, environmental damage that can be attributed to road transport is higher than the corresponding damage of operational use mainly due to the fact that tourists use their private cars to reach it, while this hotel has solar water heaters and pellet burner for the production of hot water, uses pellet for heating and gas for the kitchen operation. For the other hotels the environmental damage of operational use is higher mainly due to: (i) hotel 2 uses diesel and electricity for heating and the production of hot water, (ii) hotel 3 is the only of the studied hotels that operates annually and uses diesel for the production of hot water in winter, uses electricity (heat

Please cite this article in press as: Michailidou, A.V., et al., Life Cycle Thinking used for assessing the environmental impacts of tourism activity for a Greek tourism destination, Journal of Cleaner Production (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2015.09.099

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7

Table 3 Sizes, categories and other characteristics of hotels under study in Chalkidiki, Greece (Reference year 2013). Category

Hotel 1

Hotel 2

Hotel 3

Hotel 4

Hotel 5

Hotel 6

4*

2*

1*

3*

5*

5*

No. of rooms/beds Seasonal operation (months) Occupancy rate (%) Surface area (m2) No of floors Type of building construction Laundry In-house restaurant

10/32 7 76 800 2 Separate standing Yes 1 restaurant

17/34 6 60 600 3 Block No Only breakfast

16/32 12 30 1000 3 Block Yes 1 restaurant

151/400 6 94 5936 2 Separate standing Yes 1 restaurant, 2 bars

485/1135 7 71 38,000 8 Block Yes -bar 3 restaurants, 1 cafe

Facilities and services offered

-bar cafe

202/500 6 92 15,000 2 Separate standing Yes 2 restaurants, bar, beach bar 3 Swimming pool, spa, 2 conference rooms

Year of construction Certification/Eco-label Distance from airport (km) Air Conditioning/Heat

1995 No 100 Electricity/Electricity and pellet Solar water heaters, pellet Gas, electricity Electricity Electricity

Hot Water Kitchen Lighting Laundry

2 swimming pools, tennis, basketball and volley courts,

1988 No 87 Electricity/Diesel and Electricity Diesel Electricity Electricity Electricity

2003 No 45 Electricity/Heat pumps, diesel Solar water heaters, diesel Electricity Electricity Electricity

pumps) and diesel for heating, has high gross floor area and very low occupancy rate, (iii) hotels 4, 5, 6 use coaches from the airport, thus providing “economies of transport”. Fig. 3 also depicts that the operational use of all hotels has the highest impact on Human Health (the corresponding contribution ranges between 61 and 71% of the overall impact). In case of air transport for hotels 4, 5, 6 is taken into account, the comparative analysis of travel services demonstrates that air transport has the highest absolute impact on all three categories of endpoints (Resources, Ecosystem Quality and Human Health) of Eco-indicator 99 (Fig. 4) compared to road transport (Fig. 3). In addition, air transport has the highest impact on Resources due to the use of fossil fuels in the aviation industry (Fig. 5). This is in line with the results of other similar studies, that airplanes are the most carbon intense means of transport (Filimonau et al., 2014; Peeters and Schouten, 2006; Becken, 2001).

1991 HCCAP 102 Electricity/Gas

2007 Green key 100 Electricity/Diesel

2 swimming pools, 2 indoor swimming pools, spa, 2 conference halls, tennis, football, basketball courts 1980 Green key 112 Electricity/Diesel

Gas

Diesel

Diesel

Electricity Electricity Electricity

Electricity Electricity Electricity

Gas, electricity Electricity Electricity

Fig. 5 illustrates the results of midpoint impact categories score for the six hotels under study including all modes of transport. The impact on fossil fuels consumption is the highest for all hotels due to transport activities, as well as to the conventional lignite electricity consumption in the area. Impacts on respiratory inorganics are followed for the same reasons. Impacts on respiratory organics, radiation and ozone layer are negligible and are not depicted in Fig. 5. The analysis demonstrates that hotel 6 is responsible for the largest share in all 11 impact categories of Eco-indicator 99, followed by hotel 5, whereas hotel 1 holds the smallest share in all impact categories. Thus, large-sized hotels contribute by far to the absolute environmental damages compared to small-sized ones. In the case that the operational phase of hotels is taken in isolation, HVAC systems are the most energy intensive in all cases, followed by kitchen facilities and the production of hot water. This is a result characterizing all-sized hotels in the area, considering

Fig. 3. Evaluation of impacts from operational use and road transport for all hotels with Eco-indicator 99.

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that solar energy e surprisingly e is not widely exploited in this area. Thus, most of the environmental load of hotels' operation arises from fossil fuels consumption (especially from lignite-based electricity). Furthermore, the results of our analysis depict that smaller hotels in Chalkidiki are responsible for less environmental burden mainly when they use: (i) pellet instead of diesel for space heating, (ii) solar panels and pellets for the production of hot water and (ii) gas (LPG) in kitchen facilities. Characteristically, it should be mentioned that although hotel 1 has higher occupancy rate than hotels 2 and 3, the use of pellet instead of diesel for space heating, the use of solar panels and pellets for the production of hot water and the use of gas in kitchen facilities, are responsible for less environmental load. Based on these results, policy making should primarily put forward incentives in order to maximize the penetration of Renewable Energy Sources (RES) in hotels in the area. Measures such as the use of energy-efficient lights to tourist lodgings, solar water heating systems and HVAC and lighting automation systems need to be promoted for mitigating the estimated impacts and minimize the overall environmental impact attributed to the tourism activity in Chalkidiki. The external wall insulation is also an important measure that can be promoted in hotels, especially those that are more than 20e30 years old in order to increase energy efficiency of the tourism sector. These options highlight central governance initiatives to put forward economic instruments and financial motives for both local authorities and the tourism enterprises. These measures are considered easy to implement, have significant environmental benefit in relation to their cost (considering also Greek economic crisis) and present high levels of social acceptability.

Up-market large hotels contribute by far to the environmental load of the area where the damages to Resources show the highest value, such as hotel 6, where damages to Resources account for 62% of the total impact. It is remarkable that hotel 6 contributes to damages to Resources almost 143 times higher than hotel 1. All hotels present their highest damages to Resources and their smallest damages to Ecosystem Quality. Similar trends for large hotels are the output of the impact assessment method CML 2001. The Global Warming Potential over the span of 100 years (GWP100) for Hotel 6 reaches 15,300 t CO2-eq. including operational use, road and air transport, GWP100 for hotels 4 and 5 are 4680 and 6530 t CO2-eq. respectively. GWP100 of hotel 6 is 127 times higher than hotel 1. Up-market hotels impose larger absolute impacts on the environment (6e10 times), especially in the consumption of resources when transport (and especially air transport) is taken into account. However, apart from absolute comparisons, normalizations are also meaningful to provide important insights. Larger hotels have larger carbon impacts when these are estimated per unit of guestnight (Fig. 6a) due to larger transport-oriented pressures (e.g. 90.4 kg CO2-eq/guest night for hotel 6). However, one important result is that when transport is not included in the LCA, larger hotels present lower normalized carbon footprint per guest-night (e.g. 27 kg CO2-eq/guest night for hotel 6 e Fig. 6b), despite the fact that those hotels have more guests during their operational season, mainly due to economies of scale in accommodation compared to the respective small-sized ones. Furthermore, larger hotels have more effective HVAC systems than smaller ones. That is the reason for which larger hotels have usually smaller carbon impacts (excluding transport) when these are estimated per unit of

Fig. 4. Evaluation of impacts from air transport hotels 4, 5, 6 with Eco-indicator 99.

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A.V. Michailidou et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production xxx (2015) 1e12

9

Fig. 5. Results of the impact categories score of Eco-indicator 99 for all hotels life-cycle including transport services.

Gross Floor Area (GFA) (Fig. 7b). The total annual GHG emissions per GFA including air and road transport of tourists is much greater for hotel 6 (Fig. 7a). This highlights the fact that the status of environmental burden of an energy efficient hotel, such as hotel 4, could be deteriorated when road and especially air transport is included (Fig. 7a,b). Road transport increases total annual GHG emissions per guest night by a factor of 1.2e2.5. In contrast, the corresponding factors for air transport inclusion are 2.2e9. Thus, air transport is responsible for a considerable higher normalized environmental damage for the medium to large-sized hotels of our case study in comparison to the road transport. Measures such as the penetration of vehicles with biofuels in the hotels' fleet should be under consideration. Moreover, the maximization of local products in

dining sector is an excellent option, by giving incentives to Greek producers and materials. These initiatives should highlight a future central governance priority for both public authorities and the tourism businesses, since they will definitely have significant environmental benefit and present high levels of social acceptability. However, regarding air transport contribution, mitigation is a much more complicated issue. Air transport is a transboundary dynamic agent of tourism e and economic activity in general e and requires the involvement of international actors to investigate the possibility of lowering the corresponding environmental impact. One issue should be raised at this point. Up-market hotels with the largest absolute carbon footprint have already been nominated with the Green Key award in our case. This is an implication that should be outlined in the presented analysis. Environmental

Fig. 6. (a) Total annual GHG emissions per guest night (kg CO2-eq.) including air and road transport of tourists, (b) Total annual GHG emissions per guest night (kg CO2-eq.) resulting from the operational use of the hotels.

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A.V. Michailidou et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production xxx (2015) 1e12

Fig. 7. (a) Total annual GHG emissions per unit square area (kg CO2-eq./m2/year) including air and road transport of tourists, (b) Total annual GHG emissions per unit square area (kg CO2-eq./m2/year) resulting from the operational use of the hotels.

certification is a voluntary procedure that sets, assesses, monitors, and gives written assurance that a business, product, process, service, or management system conforms to specific requirements. In regards to the tourism industry, there are more than 100 global tourism certification schemes (Medina, 2005), concerning sustainability, meaning focusing on environmental, social and economic performance. Since those certification schemes involve several assessment categories (e.g. environmental management including or not energy, water, waste management, water quality, environmental education and information, economical management etc.), yet success in only one or two categories enables a hotel to become certified despite its poor environmental performance. In addition, certifications have three objectives: (i) promote the voluntary implementation of sustainability practices amongst hospitality providers, (ii) have the potential to enhance the profitability of certified hotels, (iii) provide potential guests with more accurate information about the environmental performance of hotels during the booking process (Molina-Azorin et al., 2009; Black and Crabtree, 2007; Font, 2002). Houlihan Wiberg (2009) examined the effect of different certification schemes found in the literature on emissions of the hotel sector. According to her findings emissions reduction is not a priority in certification as evident in the lack of reference of any CO2 related criteria and no benchmarking of CO2 except for Green Globe (calculates CO2 emissions but in a non-mandatory category for certification). In addition, existing schemes do not properly account for CO2 emissions and do not in general lead to a reduction in emissions. This is largely due to incorrect accounting (adding delivered units of electricity to delivered fuels leading to erroneous delivered energy performance benchmarks) and key CO2 emissions reduction criteria being weighted the same as criteria that have no direct impact on emissions reduction. On these grounds, a hotel could be certified even if CO2 emissions are extremely high (Houlihan Wiberg, 2009), a fact which questions the effectiveness of certification schemes. Due to the diversification of available-also limited data in the globe-construction and demolition phases are not incorporated in the work presented herein. Regarding construction and demolition phase of hotels, literature review revealed that very few studies have included the construction, maintenance and refurbishment, €nig and demolition phase of the life cycle of the hotel buildings. Ko

et al. (2007) estimated that the required energy for the construction of a hotel equates to 20% of the total energy consumption of the  -Batle building within its operational life cycle of 80 years. Rossello et al. (2010) concluded that the total energy use during the construction phase is the fifth part of the total energy use during the whole life cycle (50 years life time). Filimonau et al. (2011b) have taken into account an additional value of 15% of the operational energy use for the embodied energy (construction, refurbishment and demolition phase) of a hotel building assuming 80 years of life. They notice nevertheless that such an estimate can be criticized as being too crude. All three phases are highly dependable from geographic location, materials, equipment and technologies used as well as waste management systems and a variety of other factors. Taking into account that building construction in Greece is characterized by the broad use of concrete, which is an energy intensive material, and due to lack of available national data, the incorporation of construction and demolition phases in the LCT approach is definitely a future challenge for the authors. The refurbishment was also not taken into account due to lack of available data of the hotels examined. It is the authors' belief that coarse estimations for refurbishment would not add value in the present work. Last but not least, regarding the non-operational phase of transport, e.g. construction of cars, coaches, airplanes, fuels production, end-of-life scenarios, were also excluded from the analysis, due to the fact that the non-operational phase of transport cannot be attributed to the defined area of concentrated tourism under study. In addition, policy-making taking into account such factors is not of local dimension but rather of global one. 5. Conclusions The awareness of the environmental impact of tourism by policy makers is of great importance in order to avoid severe future load on the environment. The work presented herein clearly depicts the fact that LCA can play a crucial role in decreasing the complexity in the strategic planning of tourism, especially in local-to-regional areas of concentrated tourism. Although the framework can be generically applied, the needs of each area may vary. Consequently, the special characteristics of an area with concentrated tourism activity will need to be taken into consideration in order to efficiently implement the generic approach presented. Furthermore,

Please cite this article in press as: Michailidou, A.V., et al., Life Cycle Thinking used for assessing the environmental impacts of tourism activity for a Greek tourism destination, Journal of Cleaner Production (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2015.09.099

A.V. Michailidou et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production xxx (2015) 1e12

the scientific added value of the work presented herein is twofold: (i) extents the scope of LCA application to a new destination where tourism is an important economic sector, (ii) the results presented provide the basis for the identification of environmental “hot spots” in order to highlight impacts and provide policy making insights to promote the implementation of effective mitigation measures. Air transport is prevalently responsible for the total environmental damage for medium to large-sized hotels of the case under study in comparison to the road transport, accommodation services and the hotels operational use and energy intensity. As far as operational use of all hotels is concerned, HVAC systems are the most energy intensive agents of environmental burden, followed by kitchen and production of hot water. Based on the results of this study, policy making should primarily put forward incentives (funding opportunities, taxation motives, legislative modifications etc) in order to maximize the penetration of RES in hotels and realistically implement the recommended policies in the area under consideration for both accommodation and transport processes that can be attributed to tourism activity. Measures such as energyefficient lights to tourist lodgings, solar water heating systems (surprisingly missing from a high percentage of Chalkidiki's hotels), HVAC and lighting automation systems and external wall insulation in hotels should be put forward in order to minimize the overall environmental impact attributed to the tourism activity in Chalkidiki. These measures highlight future central governance initiatives for economic instruments and financial motives for both local authorities and the tourism enterprises in the area. In order to reduce transport-oriented carbon footprint in the tourism area under study, measures such as the penetration of vehicles with biofuels in the hotels' fleet and the maximization of local products in dining sector should be considered. Linking LCA results with decision-making is a challenging task. Toward this aim, the possibility of integration with other environmental impact assessment and management tools (EFA, EIs and MCA) is considered in an extended methodological framework. Furthermore, the important task of an accurate LCA is to collect reliably the necessary information from hotel managers and tourists. To find energy, water and food consumption data as well as amounts of wastes generated for all items at all sectors of the tourists' holidays may not be economically and logistically feasible. These data are hard to collect because most hotels hold no detailed records and furthermore, hotel managers are often reluctant to publish their data in common view. In addition, tourists are often skeptical for their participation in such a study, since they have to provide detailed records of their travel, undergone activities, food amounts etc, in their relaxing time. Scarce is also the information regarding the energy, water and material consumption and waste generation for the construction, refurbishment and demolition phases of hotels in the literature. There is high variability of such data depending on national legislation regarding building construction, materials, machineries and technology available. However, an analytical approach that will include more data for LCT of construction and demolition phases is definitely considered a future challenge for the authors. Acknowledgments The authors would like to sincerely thank the anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments, which greatly improved the quality of the manuscript. References

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Please cite this article in press as: Michailidou, A.V., et al., Life Cycle Thinking used for assessing the environmental impacts of tourism activity for a Greek tourism destination, Journal of Cleaner Production (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2015.09.099