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Quantifying energy use, carbon dioxide emission, and other environmental loads from island tourism based on a life cycle assessment approach
Journal of Cleaner Production 17 (2009) 1324–1330
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Journal of Cleaner Production journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jclepro
Quantifying energy use, carbon dioxide emission, and other environmental loads from island tourism based on a life cycle assessment approach Nae-Wen Kuo a, *, Pei-Hun Chen b a b
Department of Geography, National Taiwan Normal University, P.O. Box 22-96, Taipei, Taipei City 10699, Taiwan, ROC Graduate Institute of Tourism and Health Science, National Taipei College of Nursing, Taiwan, ROC
a r t i c l e i n f o
a b s t r a c t
Article history: Received 30 September 2008 Received in revised form 21 April 2009 Accepted 24 April 2009 Available online 8 May 2009
The main purpose of industrial ecology is to evaluate and minimize impacts from economic activities of human society. Tourism as one economic activity, results in a full range of environmental impacts, but few applications of industrial ecology to tourism management have previously been discussed. Life cycle assessment (LCA) is used in this research to explore environmental impacts of island tourism, and then the environmental loads per tourist per trip can be found. Penghu Island in Taiwan is taken as an example to examine this new approach. Various environmental loads in transportation, accommodation, and recreation activity sector are all inventoried and calculated here. In summary, per tourist per trip uses 1606 MJ of energy, 607 L of water, and emits 109,034 g of CO2, 2660 g of CO, 597 g of HC, 70 g of NOx. In addition, per tourist per trip also discharges 416 L of wastewater, 83.1 g of BOD, and 1.95 g of solid waste. In terms of energy use, the transportation consumes the largest energy (67%); in particular, the airplane sector. Moreover, per Penghu tourist results in more environmental loads than local people; for example, the amount of solid waste discharge per tourist is 1.95 kg per day, while that of per local people is 1.18 kg. Finally, the advantages and limitations of such LCA approach are also discussed. Ó 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Environmental loads CO2 emissions Tourism Life cycle assessment
1. Introduction 1.1. Tourism and environment Tourism is now, according to the World Trade Organization, the world’s biggest industry [1]. Globally, tourism has a gross output of over US $7 trillion, is responsible for 11.5% of global gross domestic product (GDP), and employs 200 million people, which is 11% of the world’s workforce [2]. With 760 million international tourist arrivals recorded worldwide in 2004, tourism is a major global activity that has grown by 25% in the past 10 years [3]. The sheer size of the industry makes it important to consider its environmental impacts. It is important for the industry to understand its impacts, because its products often depend on the appeal of attractive natural capital – clean beaches and oceans, pleasant climate, and wildlife. Tourism may therefore be vulnerable to its local impacts; for example, degradation of beaches or biodiversity loss. In addition, tourism also contributes to global environmental issues [4].
* Corresponding author. Tel.: þ886 2 23637874; fax: þ886 2 23691770. E-mail addresses: [email protected], [email protected] (N.-W. Kuo). 0959-6526/$ – see front matter Ó 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2009.04.012
For example, traveling by airplane requires considerable amounts of fossil fuels and releases greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. In a report on aviation and the atmosphere by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), it was estimated that aviation accounts for 2–3% of the world’s total use of fossil fuels, with more than 80% consumed by civil aviation [5]. Olsthoorn also estimated that aviation’s contribution to global anthropogenic CO2 emissions is forecast to grow to 3–7% by 2050 [6]. Tourism development has become a major policy of the government of Taiwan to increase employment and economic growth. Several islands around Taiwan have attractive natural resources and then tourism activities have increased in the past 10 years. However, islands are extremely fragile integrated systems where any future development needs to be focused on sustainable and integrated options capable of reconciling the economy, human development and environmental conservation, especially the tourism activity [7]. Penghu, the biggest island around Taiwan, receives more than 500,000 tourists per year and some negative impacts have appeared [8]. Hence, the purpose of this research is to investigate the environmental loads from tourism in Penghu Island. The negative environmental impacts resulted from tourism have discussed well [9–11]. However, most of the research related about tourism impacts is based on qualitative judgment, because
N.-W. Kuo, P.-H. Chen / Journal of Cleaner Production 17 (2009) 1324–1330 Table 1 The indicators used in this research.
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Table 3 Percentage (%) of different types of transportation within five recreational areas.
Category of services
Indicators
Type
Magong
Basha
Shiyeu
Wanan
Chimei
Transportation
Energy use Waste emission: CO2, CO, HC, and NOx
Accommodation
Energy use CO2 emission Electricity use Water demand Solid waste discharge Wastewater discharge BOD discharge
Motorcycle Rental car Tour bus Small shuttle bus Others
47.6 24.4 17.1 9.0 1.9
61.5 14.7 14.3 7.3 2.2
59.8 15.5 13.9 8.8 2.0
57.7 4.8 23.3 13.2 1.0
63.5 3.4 20.8 11.8 0.5
Recreation activity
Energy use CO2 emission
environmental impacts contributed by tourists are in fact not easy to quantify. In addition, quantified environmental loads are important for stakeholders of the tourism industry. Based on these quantifiable data, they can identify the problems directly and then propose more effective strategies. For example, the amount of solid waste from tourists is an important parameter to design the treatment equipment and procedures. Hence, Life cycle assessment (LCA) approach was applied in this research to inventory the environmental loads of island tourism, to figure out the environmental loads, and to quantify these loads in terms of per tourist per trip. Since tourism is a composite product, when the tourists begin the trip, the life cycle of the ‘‘tourism product’’ starts; and when tourists finish their trip, the life cycle of the ‘‘tourism product’’ ends. Accordingly, every sector of the whole trip including transportation, accommodation, and recreation activity is all considered and the environmental loads of the whole trip can be inventoried under such approach. 1.2. Quantifying environmental loads from tourism Although most of the literature related about tourism impacts is based on qualitative description, Kuo and Yu have proposed one method to quantify the environmental loads from tourism in 1997 and this method is convenient for managers to use [12]. The environmental loads from tourists in Shei-Pa National Park in Taiwan were calculated based on visitor information from questionnaires and combination per capita data. The water demand, the electricity used and the various forms of the environmental loads, including wastewater and solid waste discharge, were all surveyed
Table 2 The basic information of tourists to Penghu Island. 1. Length of stay (days) 1 2 3 4 S5
Percentage (%) 1.0 6.40 60.40 24.10 8.10
2. Type of transportation (origin to Penghu Island) Airplane Ship
97.50 2.50
3. Recreation activity Sight seeing Historic sites visiting Landscape visiting Motorized water activity Swimming Nature watching Rafting Fishing
90.91 11.40 20.90 61.18 74.69 75.60 66.70 7.13
and calculated on a per capita basis. Other researchers also applied the same calculation method to explore the environmental loads from New Zealand’s domestic tourism industry [13–16]. Their work was focused on the energy consumption from tourism activities. In addition, the US Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) also uses the same methodology to quantify environmental impacts from selected leisure activities in the American [17]. USEPA employed various environmental indicators to assess particular sectors of tourism including: water use, biological oxygen demand of wastewater, total suspended solids in wastewater, energy use, air pollution (hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide, and nitrogen oxides), greenhouse gas emissions, and municipal solid waste generation. Go¨ssling [4] undertook a broad brushstroke analysis of the global impacts of tourism, focusing on ‘change of land cover and land use’, ‘use of energy and its impacts’, ‘exchange of biota and species extinction’, ‘dispersion of diseases’, and ‘psychological consequences of travel’. His work drew from large data sets from sources such as the World Tourism Organization, and approximated figures such as total land-take attributable to tourism, and total energy consumption by tourism. However, the detailed analysis of specific holiday tourism products was still lack in this study. In addition, Go¨ssling et al. [18] used ecological footprint analysis (EFA) to assess the sustainability of Seychelle’s tourism industry. They focused on footprints of ‘fossil energy land’, ‘built-up land’, ‘food and fiber consumption’, and ‘total ecological impact’. Their study explored the potential of EFA to be used to analyze the sustainability of tourism destinations. In addition, Patterson [19] tried to conduct eco-efficiency analysis of New Zealand tourism, depicting inputs of profit per unit of environmental output, for energy use, water use, land use, water discharge, nitrate discharge, phosphorus discharge, biological oxygen demand discharge, and CO2 emissions. Go¨ssling et al. [20] also made some efforts on eco-efficiency with regard to emissions of greenhouse gases. They analyzed several tourism destinations as case studies, and found travel distance to be the factor most likely to result in an unfavorable ecoefficiency, and that air travel was the most inefficient mode of transport. They also concluded that the eco-efficiency of holiday tourism products could be improved through longer durations of visit, and higher expenditure per visit. The eco-efficiency of the case studies was compared with those of other world industries, and tourism was found to be less eco-efficient than the global industry average. In addition, Peeters et al. employed both ecological footprint and eco-efficiency to analyze the sustainability of the inbound Amsterdam tourism industry [21]. By analyzing where tourists
Table 4 Percentage (%) of stay at different types of accommodation in Magong. Number of night
Hotel
Bed and breakfast
Campground
Private home
1 2 3 S4
36.1 52.5 9.1 2.3
22.8 57.0 18.4 1.8
0 0 0 0
20.0 40.0 15.0 25.0
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Table 5 The per capita data used in this research. Category of loads
Demand and emission factor
1. Type of transportation (origin to Penghu Island) Airplane Energy intensity: 2.576 MJ/rpka CO2 emission: 69 g/MJ Ship Energy intensity: 1.48 MJ/pkmb CO2 emission: 71.6 g/MJ 2. Type of transportation (within Penghu Island) Two-stroke motorcycle Energy intensity: 0.8133 MJ/pkm Waste emission:
Four-stroke motorcycle
Rental car
Small shuttle bus
Tour bus
CO2: 58 g/pkm CO: 15.01 g/pkm HC: 5.54 g/pkm NOx: 0.02 g/pkm Energy intensity: Waste emission: CO2: 58 g/pkm CO: 20.4 g/pkm HC: 1.52 g/pkm NOx: 0.09 g/pkm Energy intensity: Waste emission: CO2: 63 g/pkm CO: 18.26 g/pkm HC: 1.97 g/pkm NOx: 0.62 g/pkm Energy intensity: Waste emission: CO2: 40 g/pkm CO: 0.75 g/pkm HC: 0.23 g/pkm NOx: 1.14 g/pkm Energy intensity: Waste emission:
Data sources [14] [27] [16] [28]
0.8133 MJ/pkm
1.06 MJ/pkm
1.2 MJ/pkm
CO2: 51 g/pkm CO: 0.375 g/pkm HC: 0.115 g/pkm NOx: 0.568 g/pkm
[16] MOBILE-Taiwan model [29]
3. Energy intensity and CO2 emission of different accommodation types Hotel 155 MJ/visitor night [13] [29] CO2 emission: 7900 g/visitor night Bed and breakfast 110 MJ/visitor night CO2 emission: 4140 g/visitor night Campground 25 MJ/visitor night CO2 emission: 1364 g/visitor night Private home 41 MJ/visitor night CO2 emission: 1619 g/visitor night 4. Resource demand and pollution produced within accommodation Water demand 292 L/per day [30] Electricity used 16.416 MJ/per day [31] Solid waste discharge 0.94 kg/per day [26] Wastewater discharge 200 L/per day [32] BOD discharge 40 g/per day [32] 5. Energy intensity and CO2 emission of different recreation activities Sight seeing 8.5 MJ/visitor [15] CO2 emission: 417 g/visitor Historic sites visiting 3.5 MJ/visitor [29] CO2 emission: 172 g/visitor Landscape visiting 8.5 MJ/visitor CO2 emission: 417 g/visitor Motorized water activity 236.8 MJ/visitor CO2 emission: 15,300 g/visitor Swimming 26.5 MJ/visitor CO2 emission: 1670 g/visitor Nature watching 8.5 MJ/visitor CO2 emission: 417 g/visitor Rafting 35.1 MJ/visitor CO2 emission: 2240 g/visitor Fishing 26.5 MJ/visitor CO2 emission: 1670 g/visitor a b
rpk: revenue passenger-kilometers. pkm: per passenger-kilometers.
Vehicle type
Annual energy use (MJ)
Annual CO2 emissions (g)
Motorcycle Rental car Tour bus Small shuttle bus
4.32 107 1.84 107 0.91 107 0.90 107
3.09 109 1.09 109 0.62 109 0.30 109
Total
7.97 107 (100%)
(54%) (23%) (12%) (11%)
(61%) (21%) (12%) (6%)
5.10 109 (100%)
[16] MOBILE-Taiwan model [29]
0.75 MJ/pkm
Table 6 Energy uses and CO2 emissions of different transportation vehicles within Penghu Island.
travel from, and the expenditure of different tourist groups, ecoefficiency can inform where to focus marketing efforts to retain revenue but decrease the ecological footprint caused by air travel. For example, marketing efforts could be reduced in Japan in order to discourage visits from such an environmentally costly long haul location, while marketing in high spending short haul locations such as Switzerland, could be increased to retain revenue and maximize eco-efficiency. In summary, some researchers have tried to quantify the environmental loads from tourism and some useful assessment tools have been proposed including ecological footprint and eco-efficiency analyses. However, such previous studies do not consider every parameters of the whole trip and the final results are not complete. Hence, a more comprehensive assessment tool (such as LCA) needs to be developed and then the full impact resulted from tourism can be inventoried more completely.
2. Methods The environmental loads from tourism were inventoried in terms of the tourist sector in this study, and life cycle assessment was used to assess such environmental loads resulted from tourists when they travel to, stay at, and leave from Penghu Island. Consoli et al. [22] defined LCA as: ‘‘an objective process to evaluate the environmental burdens associated with a product, process or activity by identifying and quantifying energy and materials used and wastes released to the environment, to assess the impacts.and to evaluate.opportunities to effect environmental improvements.’’ The emphasis of this definition is consistent with ISO 14040 [23], which stipulates that LCA involves compiling data on inputs and outputs, and evaluating and interpreting environmental impacts. The goal and scope definition of an LCA provides a description of the product system in terms of the system boundaries and a functional unit. The functional unit is the important basis that enables alternative goods, or services, to be compared and analyzed. In this study, the life cycle is defined in the perspective of ‘‘a tourism product’’ (or tourism service). The system boundary is regarded as the whole trip of one tourism product, and the functional unit is environmental loads per tourist per trip; for example, ‘‘energy use per tourist per trip.’’ In other words, the life cycle of Penghu Island tourism product starts when tourists travel to
Table 7 Annual air emissions from different transportation vehicles within Penghu Island. Vehicle type Two-stroke motorcycle Four-stroke motorcycle Car Bus Total
CO, g and (%) 6.50 108 2.33 108 3.22 108 0.12 108
(54) (19) (26) (1)
12.17 108 (100)
HC, g and (%)
NOx, g and (%)
2.11 108 0.17 108 0.42 108 0.04 108
0.72 106 1.03 106 12.21 106 17.95 106
(77) (6) (15) (2)
2.74 108 (100)
(2) (3) (39) (56)
31.91 106 (100)
N.-W. Kuo, P.-H. Chen / Journal of Cleaner Production 17 (2009) 1324–1330 Table 8 Annual energy use and CO2 emission of different accommodation. Accommodation type Hotel Bed and breakfast Campground Private home
Energy use (MJ) 7.18 107 4.03 107 2.51 107 0.51 107
(61%) (35%) (0%) (4%)
11.73 107 (100%)
Total
CO2 (g) 3.66 109 1.52 109 1.37 109 2.01 109
(42%) (18%) (16%) (24%)
8.56 109 (100%)
Penghu and ends at the point when tourists finish their whole trip and back to their original places. Life cycle inventory (LCI), the main focus of this paper, is a methodology for estimating the consumption of resources and the quantities of waste flows and emissions caused by or otherwise attributable to a tourism product’s life cycle. Consumption of resources and generation of waste (emissions) are likely to occur during each sector when tourists travel to, stay at, and leave from Penghu Island. Hence, the whole travel process of tourists is regarded as the system boundary of the life cycle inventory in this study. The whole travel process of tourists in Penghu Island was inventoried through questionnaires in this research. The research questionnaires consist of four parts: (1) basic data of tourists, (2) actual transportation behavior of tourists, (3) accommodation type that tourists stay, and (4) what kinds of recreation activities tourists choose when they stay in Penghu Island. Which indicators will be selected to provide a simplified representation of environmental loads? In general, tourism can be viewed as a composite service sector with three principal elements: travel, accommodation, and activities [24]. Environmental loads can arise from each of these three elements due to the consumption of natural resources and the production of wastes. Important indicators that were often mentioned in previous studies such as Kuo and Yu (2001) [12], Becken et al., (2001, 2002, 2003) [13–16], and USEPA (2000) [17] were selected here (Table 1). In addition, in order to compare the energy use and carbon emission of different sectors, energy use and carbon dioxide emission were all taken into consideration in each sector. In order to calculate the environmental loads per tourist per trip, or environmental loads per tourist per day, the amount of annual environmental loads generated by tourists in Penghu Island needs to be found first. How to calculate the amount of annual environmental loads generated by tourists? The following Equation (1) [12] is selected to use in this research. Then, data about environmental loads per tourist per trip, and environmental loads per tourist per day can be calculated.
Si ¼
X Ci Tj Pj
(1)
Table 9 Annual energy use and CO2 emission of different recreation activities. Recreation activity Sight seeing Historic sites visiting Landscape visiting Motorized water activity Swimming Nature watching Rafting Fishing Total
Annual energy use (MJ) 1.11 107 0.12 107 0.11 107 7.08 107 0.88 107 0.52 107 2.56 107 0.06 107 12.44 107
(9%) (1%) (1%) (57%) (7%) (4%) (21%) (0.5%)
Annual CO2 emissions (g) 5.45 108 0.59 108 0.54 108 45.74 108 5.55 108 2.55 108 16.34 108 0.38 108 77.14 108
(7%) (0.8%) (0.7%) (59%) (7%) (3%) (21%) (0.5%)
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Si: the amount of loads of i indicator, Ci: per capita data of i indicator, Tj: length of stay, Pj: numbers of the tourists of the ‘‘Tj’’. In addition, how can air pollutant emissions related to tourist transportation be assessed? The following Equation (2) is proposed here to calculate the quantity of air pollutants from various vehicles.
Qi ¼ Fi L N
(2)
Qi: total quantity of ‘i’ pollutant one year (g/yr), Fi: emission factor of ‘i’ pollutant (g/[km vehicle]), L: length of travel (km), N: number of vehicles per year (vehicle/yr). 3. Results and discussion Penghu, the biggest island around Taiwan, its area is about 128 km2, has diversity natural resources such as beautiful geological landscape. The number of local population is about 91,785 in 2006. Penghu Island receives about 500,000 tourists per year during 2004– 2006. According to the records from Penghu local government [25], the average number of tourists is 458,976 tourists during 2002–2006. The tourist data about length of stay, type of transportation (origin to Penghu Island), type of transportation (within Penghu Island), accommodation type, and recreation activity were found with structured questionnaires by stratified random sampling in August 2006. The number of effective samples is 407, and the basic information of tourists at Penghu Island is summarized in Tables 2–4. There are five main recreational areas in Penghu Island including: Magong, Basha, Shiyeu, Wanan, and Chimei. Magong is the major city of Penghu Island, where Basha and Shiyeu are in the north area, and Wanan and Chimei are small islands in the south area. Hence, the data about the different types of accommodation that tourists choose were collected in terms of each recreational area. For example, the percentage (%) of stay at different types of accommodation in Magong is shown in Table 4. These data are essential elements to calculate the environmental loads from tourists based on Equations (1) and (2). The per capita data used in this research are shown in Table 5. After calculating, the environmental loads of Penghu Island were shown in Tables 6–11. 3.1. Environmental loads in transportation sector Because most tourists travel to Penghu Island by airplane, about 99.97% of the annual energy use (4.155 108 MJ) and CO2 emissions (2.867 1010 g) is resulted from the airplane. With regard to the energy use of vehicles within Penghu Island, motorcycles consume the major part of energy (54%), while small shuttle buses use about the 11% of energy consumption (Table 6). In addition, motorcycles also contribute the most part of CO2 emissions (61%), and the total CO2 emission from transportation vehicles within Penghu Island is about 5.10 109 g per year. Moreover, indicators of CO, HC, and NOx emissions were also selected to show the air pollution problem from vehicles within Penghu Island (Table 7). In terms of CO and HC emissions, the major contributor is the motorcycle, while those generated from buses are relatively small. However, buses result in major part of NOx pollutant emissions (56%), and motorcycles only produce 5% of NOx emissions. The results of this study also indicated that air pollution control cannot rely on reducing one type vehicle use within the tourism sector, because different vehicles produce different pollutants. 3.2. Environmental loads in accommodation sector Most tourists stay at hotels when they travel to Penghu, but the energy intensity of a hotel is higher than that of other
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local government should develop and promote low energy intensity recreation activities.
Table 10 Annual energy use and CO2 emission of different sectors. Sector
Annual energy use (MJ)
Annual CO2 emissions (g)
Transportation (origin to Penghu Island) Transportation (within Penghu Island) Accommodation Recreation activity
4.15 108 (56%)
2.87 1010 (57%)
7.97 107 (11%)
5.10 109 (10%)
1.17 108 (16%) 1.24 108 (17%)
8.56 109 (17%) 7.71 109 (16%)
Total
7.37 108
5.00 1010
accommodation. According to the results shown in Table 8, tourists consume 7.18 107 MJ annually in the hotel sector, and it is about 61% of the total energy use in accommodation. At the same time, the accommodation sector results in 8.56 109 CO2 emissions annually. In addition, tourists also consume water, and electricity, and produce solid waste and wastewater when they rest in the accommodation; hence, other related loads’ indicators are also surveyed in this research. According to the results, tourists demand 2.78 108 L of water, and use 1.57 107 MJ of electricity per year, and such resource demand has exceeded the amount that Penghu Island can provide to tourists. For example, Penghu will face severe fresh water shortages (1.67 107 L/day) in 2022 [8]. In addition, tourists also generate 8.96 105 kg of solid waste, 3.81 107 g of BOD, and 1.91 108 L of wastewater per year, and the wastewater has also exceeded the capacity that local treatment equipment can provide. About 50% of the wastewater cannot be treated properly and has resulted in serious environmental pollution [8]. For example, untreated sewage (high BOD levels) is pumped into the ocean directly and then causes tourists and residents to suffer ill health, and lost economic opportunities for fisherman as a consequence of the contamination of fish stocks [8]. 3.3. Environmental loads in recreation activity sector In terms of recreation activity, the motorized water activity (such as sea motorcycle riding) consumes more energy and results in more CO2 emissions than others. The motorized water activity consumes 7.08 107 MJ (57%) of energy and generates 4.57 109 CO2 emissions annually (Table 9). This is because about 61.2% of tourists enjoy motorized water activities when they travel to Penghu (Table 2), and the energy intensity of the motorized water activity is the highest (236.8 MJ/visitor). In contrast, although 90.9% of tourists goes sight seeing, the amount of energy use of this recreation activity is relative small (1.11 107 MJ, 9%). This is because the energy intensity of sight seeing is relative low. Hence, in order to reduce the energy consumption and CO2 emissions, the
3.4. Energy use and CO2 emissions among different sectors According to the findings of this research, the transportation sector consumes the largest energy (4.95 108 MJ) (Table 10). About 67% of total energy (7.37 108 MJ) is used for transportation; in particular, when tourists use airplane to travel to Penghu Island. In contrast, the energy of transportation within island is relative small (only 11%). In addition, the energy use in the accommodation sector is about 1.17 108 MJ, and it is about 16% of total energy. This is because most tourists choose hotels when they stay at Penghu, and the energy intensity of hotels is the highest among the accommodation types. The bed and breakfast may be advocated as best choice for tourists because its energy intensity is low and local people can receive economic benefit directly. With regard to CO2 emissions, the transportation sector is still the major contributor. About 3.38 108 g (67%) CO2 emissions generated from the transportation sector; hence, if the CO2 emissions from the airplane can be improved, the carbon footprint of per tourists will reduce. However, it may be in a dilemma because islands always rely on airplane to carry tourists (tourism economic benefits), but the airplane actually consumes larger energy and emits more CO2 and other pollutants. Hence, the local government should propose effective strategies to let tourists stay at Penghu Island longer and reduce the frequency that tourists transfer between origin places and Penghu Island. 3.5. Environmental loads per tourist per trip After the LCA inventory, the data about environmental loads per tourist per trip can be found in Table 11. In general, per tourist per trip consumes 1606 MJ of energy, and 607 L of water, and emits 109,034 g of CO2, 2660 g of CO, 597 g of HC, and 70 g of NOx. In addition, per tourist per trip also discharges 416 L of wastewater, 83.1 g of BOD, and 1.95 g of solid waste. According to the findings of this research, the average length of tourists’ stay in Penghu Island is 3.2 days. Hence, environmental loads per tourist per day can be found further. In summary, per tourist per day consumes 501.9 MJ of energy, and 189.6 L of water, and emits 34,073 g of CO2, 831 g of CO, 187 g of HC, 21.7 g of NOx. In addition, per tourist per trip also discharges 129.9 L of wastewater, 26.0 g of BOD, and 0.61 g of solid waste. According to the findings of Becken, Simmons, and Frampton [16], energy use per day of an average domestic tourist in West Coast of New Zealand is 341 MJ. Hence, per Penghu tourist seems to use more energy than per West
Table 11 The environmental loads per tourist on Penghu Island. Basis
Indicator
Resource demanded
Energy used (MJ) Electricity used (MJ) Water demand (L)
Air pollution produced
CO2 emission (g) CO emission (g) HC emission (g) NOx emission (g)
Water pollution produced
Wastewater discharge (L) BOD discharge (g)
Solid waste produced
Solid waste discharge (kg)
Annual environmental loads 7.37 108 1.57 107 2.78 108
Environmental loads per tourist per trip
Environmental loads per tourist per day
1606 34.11 606.74
501.9 10.66 189.61
109034.0 2659.86 596.82 69.52
34073.1 831.21 186.51 21.72
1.91 108 3.81 107
415.58 83.12
129.87 25.97
8.96 105
1.95
0.61
5.00 1010 12.21 108 2.74 108 31.91 106
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Coast tourist in New Zealand. Besides, in terms of the environmental loads that local people produce, per Penghu tourist results in more environmental loads than the local people in Penghu Island; for example, the amount of solid waste discharge per tourist is 1.95 kg per day, while that of per local people is only 1.18 kg per day [26]. 3.6. The advantages and limitations of LCA approach According to the experience of this study, the LCA approach to quantify environmental loads from tourism is feasible and this new approach has the following advantages: (1) The whole trip can be inventoried with the LCA approach; hence, a complete description about the tourism impact can be figured out. (2) Environmental loads from different sectors can be compared. For example, we can compare the differences in energy use between transportation and accommodation sectors. (3) Different tourism itinerary products at the same destination can be compared. (4) Furthermore, it can help tour agencies to design tourism itinerary products with low environmental loads because the high environmental load sectors can be identified first and then be canceled. However, some limitations were also found in such LCA approach. It was not feasible to calculate data for all indicators at all sectors of the tourists’ holidays, so results could be conservative. For example, it was impractical to calculate data on water usage at the ‘transportation’ sector. It was also impractical to calculate data for all environmental indicators during the ‘activity’ sector, because of being unable to audit each activity or to collaborate closely enough with the various suppliers of activities. In general, data on energy use, and CO2 emission may be the common items that be calculated in each sector of the tourism industry. Another limitation of such research is the data quality because the per capita data concerning about tourism sector are still scare around the world; in contrast, most per capita data are concerning about the household sector. In addition, the hidden environmental loads should be investigated further. For example, the food transportation sector needs be considered, especially for the island tourism industry. A more extensive life cycle assessment of environmental loads’ outputs attributable to tourism needs to be initiated. The LCA may encompass indirect sources of loads embodied in various points of the tourism supply chain, including: construction, agriculture, and raw material provision. Other methods of industrial ecology such as Material flow Analysis (MFA) may be applied further. 4. Conclusions In recent years, industrial ecology is used to identify and reduce impacts from economic activities, and it has become an important tool to seek sustainable development for industries. However, most application cases of industrial ecology are about manufacturing, and the tourism industry is seldom studied within industrial ecology. The application of industrial ecology within tourism was investigated in this research in order to quality the environmental loads from island tourism. Environmental loads, in particular, those that resulted from tourists of Penghu Island were successfully surveyed and calculated with life cycle inventory approach in this research. According to the experiences from this research, industrial ecology may become an important tool for tourism management in the future.
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The life cycle inventory analysis of the environmental loads from tourism was investigated in terms of tourists (the demand sector of tourism system) in this study. The important task is to survey the information about tourists, and then the travel pattern data of tourists can be used to calculate the environmental loads per tourist per trip. The final results of this research can help stakeholder plan and to design a low impact tourism itinerary product. In addition, tourists can also learn how to travel with low environmental loads based on the findings of this research. On the other hand, the environmental loads from tourism can also be investigated in terms of tour companies (the supply sector of tourism system) with life cycle assessment. Hence, another approach is also important to identify the resources consumption and pollutants emissions of each tourism sub-system (e.g. catering, hotels, and entrainment facilities). The approach that environmental loads are inventoried in terms of business unit can help private companies how to reduce environmental loads in their operation and services. In order to achieve the goal of sustainable tourism development, the life cycle assessments in terms of tourists and business companies are all important. Furthermore, an advanced questionnaire will be developed in the next phase of our study to collect more detailed information about the travel pattern of tourists when they stay at one destination. Then, the relationship between environmental loads and vacation lifestyle of tourists will be examined further, because different vacation lifestyles may result in various degrees of environmental loads. References [1] World Trade Organization, editor. International trade statistics 2006. Switzerland, Geneva: World Trade Organization; 2007. [2] WTO, editor. Tourism 2020 vision. Spain, Madrid: WTO; 2004. [3] WTO. World Tourism Barometer. Spain, Madrid: WTO; 2005. [4] Go¨ssling S. Global environmental consequences of tourism. Global Environmental Change 2002;12:283–302. [5] Penner J, Lister D, Griggs D, Dokken D, McFarland M. Aviation and the global atmosphere, a special report of IPCC working groups I and III in collaboration with the Scientific Assessment Panel to the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer. UK, Cambridge University Press: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Publishing; 1999. p. 1–23. [6] Olsthoorn X. CO2 emissions from international aviation: 1950–2050. Journal of Air Transportation Management 2001;7:87–93. [7] WTO. International Conference on Sustainable Tourism in Small Island Developing States and Other Islands. Lanzarote (Spain); 1998. [8] Chen PH. The environmental impacts from island tourism: a case study in Penghu Island. Taiwan, Taipei. Graduate Institute of Tourism and Health Science, National Taipei College of Nursing; 2006. [9] Mathieson A, Wall G. Tourism: economic, physical and social impacts. London: Longman Publishing; 1982. [10] Mieczkowski Z. Environmental issues of tourism and recreation. Lanham: University Press of America; 1995. [11] Holden A. Environment and tourism. London: Routledge; 2000. [12] Kuo NW, Yu YH. An investigation of the environmental loads of Shei-Pa National Park in Taiwan. Environmental Geology 2001;40(3):312–6. [13] Becken S, Frampton C, Simmons DG. Energy consumption patterns in the accommodation sector: the New Zealand case. Ecological Economics 2001;39:371–86. [14] Becken S. Analysing international tourist flows to estimate energy use associated with air travel. Journal Sustainable Tourism 2002;10(2):114–31. [15] Becken S, Simmons DG. Understanding energy consumption patterns of tourist attractions and activities in New Zealand. Tourism Management 2002;23:343–54. [16] Becken S, Simmons DG, Frampton C. Energy use associated with different travel choices. Tourism Management 2003;24:267–77. [17] USEPA. A method to quantify environmental indicators of selected leisure activities in the United States. USA, Washington: US Environmental Protection Agency; 2000. EPA-231/R/00-001. [18] Go¨ssling S, Hansson CB, Horstmeier O, Saggel S. Ecological footprint analysis as a tool to assess tourism sustainability. Ecological Economics 2002;43:199–211. [19] Patterson MG. Environmental performance and eco-efficiency of the New Zealand tourism sector. Ecological Economics at the Cutting Edge: Meeting of the Australia and New Zealand Society for Ecological Economics. Auckland: University of Auckland; November 16, 2003. [20] Go¨ssling S, Peeters P, Ceron JP, Dubois G, Pattersson T, Richardson R. The ecoefficiency of tourism. Ecological Economics 2005;54(4):417–34.
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[21] Peeters P, Go¨ssling S, Becken S. Innovation towards tourism sustainability: climate change and aviation. International Journal of Innovation and Sustainable Development 2007;1(3):184–200. [22] Consoli F, Allen D, Boustead I, Fava J, Franklin W, Quay B, et al. Guidelines for life-cycle assessment: a code of practice. Pensacola: SETAC Publishing; 1993. [23] International Organization for Standardization, ISO 14040. Environmental management – life cycle assessment – principles and framework. Geneva: International Organization for Standardization; 1997. [24] Gunn C. Tourism planning. USA, Washington: Taylor and Francis; 1994. [25] Penghu County Government. Yearbook of tourist information of Penghu County. Taiwan, Penghu: Penghu County Government; 2006. [26] EPA, ROC. Yearbook of environmental information of the Republic of China. Taiwan, Taipei: EPA, ROC; 2007.
[27] Baines JT. New Zealand energy information handbook. Christchurch: Taylor Baines and Associates; 1993. [28] Kesgin U, Vardar N. A study on exhaust gas emissions from ships in Turkish Straits. Atmospheric Environment 2001;35:1863–70. [29] Becken S, Patterson M. Measuring National carbon dioxide emissions from tourism as a key step towards achieving sustainable tourism. Journal of Sustainable Tourism 2006;14(4):323–38. [30] Taipei City Government. Yearbook of Taipei City Tap Water Bureau. Taiwan, Taipei: Taipei City Government; 2004. [31] Executive Yuan ROC. Monthly statistics of the Republic of China. Taiwan, Taipei: The Chinese Statistical Association; 2004. [1]. [32] EPA ROC. A study on domestic wastewater in Taiwan. Taiwan, Taipei: EPA, ROC; 2005.
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Journal of Cleaner Production journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jclepro
Quantifying energy use, carbon dioxide emission, and other environmental loads from island tourism based on a life cycle assessment approach Nae-Wen Kuo a, *, Pei-Hun Chen b a b
Department of Geography, National Taiwan Normal University, P.O. Box 22-96, Taipei, Taipei City 10699, Taiwan, ROC Graduate Institute of Tourism and Health Science, National Taipei College of Nursing, Taiwan, ROC
a r t i c l e i n f o
a b s t r a c t
Article history: Received 30 September 2008 Received in revised form 21 April 2009 Accepted 24 April 2009 Available online 8 May 2009
The main purpose of industrial ecology is to evaluate and minimize impacts from economic activities of human society. Tourism as one economic activity, results in a full range of environmental impacts, but few applications of industrial ecology to tourism management have previously been discussed. Life cycle assessment (LCA) is used in this research to explore environmental impacts of island tourism, and then the environmental loads per tourist per trip can be found. Penghu Island in Taiwan is taken as an example to examine this new approach. Various environmental loads in transportation, accommodation, and recreation activity sector are all inventoried and calculated here. In summary, per tourist per trip uses 1606 MJ of energy, 607 L of water, and emits 109,034 g of CO2, 2660 g of CO, 597 g of HC, 70 g of NOx. In addition, per tourist per trip also discharges 416 L of wastewater, 83.1 g of BOD, and 1.95 g of solid waste. In terms of energy use, the transportation consumes the largest energy (67%); in particular, the airplane sector. Moreover, per Penghu tourist results in more environmental loads than local people; for example, the amount of solid waste discharge per tourist is 1.95 kg per day, while that of per local people is 1.18 kg. Finally, the advantages and limitations of such LCA approach are also discussed. Ó 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Environmental loads CO2 emissions Tourism Life cycle assessment
1. Introduction 1.1. Tourism and environment Tourism is now, according to the World Trade Organization, the world’s biggest industry [1]. Globally, tourism has a gross output of over US $7 trillion, is responsible for 11.5% of global gross domestic product (GDP), and employs 200 million people, which is 11% of the world’s workforce [2]. With 760 million international tourist arrivals recorded worldwide in 2004, tourism is a major global activity that has grown by 25% in the past 10 years [3]. The sheer size of the industry makes it important to consider its environmental impacts. It is important for the industry to understand its impacts, because its products often depend on the appeal of attractive natural capital – clean beaches and oceans, pleasant climate, and wildlife. Tourism may therefore be vulnerable to its local impacts; for example, degradation of beaches or biodiversity loss. In addition, tourism also contributes to global environmental issues [4].
* Corresponding author. Tel.: þ886 2 23637874; fax: þ886 2 23691770. E-mail addresses: [email protected], [email protected] (N.-W. Kuo). 0959-6526/$ – see front matter Ó 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2009.04.012
For example, traveling by airplane requires considerable amounts of fossil fuels and releases greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. In a report on aviation and the atmosphere by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), it was estimated that aviation accounts for 2–3% of the world’s total use of fossil fuels, with more than 80% consumed by civil aviation [5]. Olsthoorn also estimated that aviation’s contribution to global anthropogenic CO2 emissions is forecast to grow to 3–7% by 2050 [6]. Tourism development has become a major policy of the government of Taiwan to increase employment and economic growth. Several islands around Taiwan have attractive natural resources and then tourism activities have increased in the past 10 years. However, islands are extremely fragile integrated systems where any future development needs to be focused on sustainable and integrated options capable of reconciling the economy, human development and environmental conservation, especially the tourism activity [7]. Penghu, the biggest island around Taiwan, receives more than 500,000 tourists per year and some negative impacts have appeared [8]. Hence, the purpose of this research is to investigate the environmental loads from tourism in Penghu Island. The negative environmental impacts resulted from tourism have discussed well [9–11]. However, most of the research related about tourism impacts is based on qualitative judgment, because
N.-W. Kuo, P.-H. Chen / Journal of Cleaner Production 17 (2009) 1324–1330 Table 1 The indicators used in this research.
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Table 3 Percentage (%) of different types of transportation within five recreational areas.
Category of services
Indicators
Type
Magong
Basha
Shiyeu
Wanan
Chimei
Transportation
Energy use Waste emission: CO2, CO, HC, and NOx
Accommodation
Energy use CO2 emission Electricity use Water demand Solid waste discharge Wastewater discharge BOD discharge
Motorcycle Rental car Tour bus Small shuttle bus Others
47.6 24.4 17.1 9.0 1.9
61.5 14.7 14.3 7.3 2.2
59.8 15.5 13.9 8.8 2.0
57.7 4.8 23.3 13.2 1.0
63.5 3.4 20.8 11.8 0.5
Recreation activity
Energy use CO2 emission
environmental impacts contributed by tourists are in fact not easy to quantify. In addition, quantified environmental loads are important for stakeholders of the tourism industry. Based on these quantifiable data, they can identify the problems directly and then propose more effective strategies. For example, the amount of solid waste from tourists is an important parameter to design the treatment equipment and procedures. Hence, Life cycle assessment (LCA) approach was applied in this research to inventory the environmental loads of island tourism, to figure out the environmental loads, and to quantify these loads in terms of per tourist per trip. Since tourism is a composite product, when the tourists begin the trip, the life cycle of the ‘‘tourism product’’ starts; and when tourists finish their trip, the life cycle of the ‘‘tourism product’’ ends. Accordingly, every sector of the whole trip including transportation, accommodation, and recreation activity is all considered and the environmental loads of the whole trip can be inventoried under such approach. 1.2. Quantifying environmental loads from tourism Although most of the literature related about tourism impacts is based on qualitative description, Kuo and Yu have proposed one method to quantify the environmental loads from tourism in 1997 and this method is convenient for managers to use [12]. The environmental loads from tourists in Shei-Pa National Park in Taiwan were calculated based on visitor information from questionnaires and combination per capita data. The water demand, the electricity used and the various forms of the environmental loads, including wastewater and solid waste discharge, were all surveyed
Table 2 The basic information of tourists to Penghu Island. 1. Length of stay (days) 1 2 3 4 S5
Percentage (%) 1.0 6.40 60.40 24.10 8.10
2. Type of transportation (origin to Penghu Island) Airplane Ship
97.50 2.50
3. Recreation activity Sight seeing Historic sites visiting Landscape visiting Motorized water activity Swimming Nature watching Rafting Fishing
90.91 11.40 20.90 61.18 74.69 75.60 66.70 7.13
and calculated on a per capita basis. Other researchers also applied the same calculation method to explore the environmental loads from New Zealand’s domestic tourism industry [13–16]. Their work was focused on the energy consumption from tourism activities. In addition, the US Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) also uses the same methodology to quantify environmental impacts from selected leisure activities in the American [17]. USEPA employed various environmental indicators to assess particular sectors of tourism including: water use, biological oxygen demand of wastewater, total suspended solids in wastewater, energy use, air pollution (hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide, and nitrogen oxides), greenhouse gas emissions, and municipal solid waste generation. Go¨ssling [4] undertook a broad brushstroke analysis of the global impacts of tourism, focusing on ‘change of land cover and land use’, ‘use of energy and its impacts’, ‘exchange of biota and species extinction’, ‘dispersion of diseases’, and ‘psychological consequences of travel’. His work drew from large data sets from sources such as the World Tourism Organization, and approximated figures such as total land-take attributable to tourism, and total energy consumption by tourism. However, the detailed analysis of specific holiday tourism products was still lack in this study. In addition, Go¨ssling et al. [18] used ecological footprint analysis (EFA) to assess the sustainability of Seychelle’s tourism industry. They focused on footprints of ‘fossil energy land’, ‘built-up land’, ‘food and fiber consumption’, and ‘total ecological impact’. Their study explored the potential of EFA to be used to analyze the sustainability of tourism destinations. In addition, Patterson [19] tried to conduct eco-efficiency analysis of New Zealand tourism, depicting inputs of profit per unit of environmental output, for energy use, water use, land use, water discharge, nitrate discharge, phosphorus discharge, biological oxygen demand discharge, and CO2 emissions. Go¨ssling et al. [20] also made some efforts on eco-efficiency with regard to emissions of greenhouse gases. They analyzed several tourism destinations as case studies, and found travel distance to be the factor most likely to result in an unfavorable ecoefficiency, and that air travel was the most inefficient mode of transport. They also concluded that the eco-efficiency of holiday tourism products could be improved through longer durations of visit, and higher expenditure per visit. The eco-efficiency of the case studies was compared with those of other world industries, and tourism was found to be less eco-efficient than the global industry average. In addition, Peeters et al. employed both ecological footprint and eco-efficiency to analyze the sustainability of the inbound Amsterdam tourism industry [21]. By analyzing where tourists
Table 4 Percentage (%) of stay at different types of accommodation in Magong. Number of night
Hotel
Bed and breakfast
Campground
Private home
1 2 3 S4
36.1 52.5 9.1 2.3
22.8 57.0 18.4 1.8
0 0 0 0
20.0 40.0 15.0 25.0
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Table 5 The per capita data used in this research. Category of loads
Demand and emission factor
1. Type of transportation (origin to Penghu Island) Airplane Energy intensity: 2.576 MJ/rpka CO2 emission: 69 g/MJ Ship Energy intensity: 1.48 MJ/pkmb CO2 emission: 71.6 g/MJ 2. Type of transportation (within Penghu Island) Two-stroke motorcycle Energy intensity: 0.8133 MJ/pkm Waste emission:
Four-stroke motorcycle
Rental car
Small shuttle bus
Tour bus
CO2: 58 g/pkm CO: 15.01 g/pkm HC: 5.54 g/pkm NOx: 0.02 g/pkm Energy intensity: Waste emission: CO2: 58 g/pkm CO: 20.4 g/pkm HC: 1.52 g/pkm NOx: 0.09 g/pkm Energy intensity: Waste emission: CO2: 63 g/pkm CO: 18.26 g/pkm HC: 1.97 g/pkm NOx: 0.62 g/pkm Energy intensity: Waste emission: CO2: 40 g/pkm CO: 0.75 g/pkm HC: 0.23 g/pkm NOx: 1.14 g/pkm Energy intensity: Waste emission:
Data sources [14] [27] [16] [28]
0.8133 MJ/pkm
1.06 MJ/pkm
1.2 MJ/pkm
CO2: 51 g/pkm CO: 0.375 g/pkm HC: 0.115 g/pkm NOx: 0.568 g/pkm
[16] MOBILE-Taiwan model [29]
3. Energy intensity and CO2 emission of different accommodation types Hotel 155 MJ/visitor night [13] [29] CO2 emission: 7900 g/visitor night Bed and breakfast 110 MJ/visitor night CO2 emission: 4140 g/visitor night Campground 25 MJ/visitor night CO2 emission: 1364 g/visitor night Private home 41 MJ/visitor night CO2 emission: 1619 g/visitor night 4. Resource demand and pollution produced within accommodation Water demand 292 L/per day [30] Electricity used 16.416 MJ/per day [31] Solid waste discharge 0.94 kg/per day [26] Wastewater discharge 200 L/per day [32] BOD discharge 40 g/per day [32] 5. Energy intensity and CO2 emission of different recreation activities Sight seeing 8.5 MJ/visitor [15] CO2 emission: 417 g/visitor Historic sites visiting 3.5 MJ/visitor [29] CO2 emission: 172 g/visitor Landscape visiting 8.5 MJ/visitor CO2 emission: 417 g/visitor Motorized water activity 236.8 MJ/visitor CO2 emission: 15,300 g/visitor Swimming 26.5 MJ/visitor CO2 emission: 1670 g/visitor Nature watching 8.5 MJ/visitor CO2 emission: 417 g/visitor Rafting 35.1 MJ/visitor CO2 emission: 2240 g/visitor Fishing 26.5 MJ/visitor CO2 emission: 1670 g/visitor a b
rpk: revenue passenger-kilometers. pkm: per passenger-kilometers.
Vehicle type
Annual energy use (MJ)
Annual CO2 emissions (g)
Motorcycle Rental car Tour bus Small shuttle bus
4.32 107 1.84 107 0.91 107 0.90 107
3.09 109 1.09 109 0.62 109 0.30 109
Total
7.97 107 (100%)
(54%) (23%) (12%) (11%)
(61%) (21%) (12%) (6%)
5.10 109 (100%)
[16] MOBILE-Taiwan model [29]
0.75 MJ/pkm
Table 6 Energy uses and CO2 emissions of different transportation vehicles within Penghu Island.
travel from, and the expenditure of different tourist groups, ecoefficiency can inform where to focus marketing efforts to retain revenue but decrease the ecological footprint caused by air travel. For example, marketing efforts could be reduced in Japan in order to discourage visits from such an environmentally costly long haul location, while marketing in high spending short haul locations such as Switzerland, could be increased to retain revenue and maximize eco-efficiency. In summary, some researchers have tried to quantify the environmental loads from tourism and some useful assessment tools have been proposed including ecological footprint and eco-efficiency analyses. However, such previous studies do not consider every parameters of the whole trip and the final results are not complete. Hence, a more comprehensive assessment tool (such as LCA) needs to be developed and then the full impact resulted from tourism can be inventoried more completely.
2. Methods The environmental loads from tourism were inventoried in terms of the tourist sector in this study, and life cycle assessment was used to assess such environmental loads resulted from tourists when they travel to, stay at, and leave from Penghu Island. Consoli et al. [22] defined LCA as: ‘‘an objective process to evaluate the environmental burdens associated with a product, process or activity by identifying and quantifying energy and materials used and wastes released to the environment, to assess the impacts.and to evaluate.opportunities to effect environmental improvements.’’ The emphasis of this definition is consistent with ISO 14040 [23], which stipulates that LCA involves compiling data on inputs and outputs, and evaluating and interpreting environmental impacts. The goal and scope definition of an LCA provides a description of the product system in terms of the system boundaries and a functional unit. The functional unit is the important basis that enables alternative goods, or services, to be compared and analyzed. In this study, the life cycle is defined in the perspective of ‘‘a tourism product’’ (or tourism service). The system boundary is regarded as the whole trip of one tourism product, and the functional unit is environmental loads per tourist per trip; for example, ‘‘energy use per tourist per trip.’’ In other words, the life cycle of Penghu Island tourism product starts when tourists travel to
Table 7 Annual air emissions from different transportation vehicles within Penghu Island. Vehicle type Two-stroke motorcycle Four-stroke motorcycle Car Bus Total
CO, g and (%) 6.50 108 2.33 108 3.22 108 0.12 108
(54) (19) (26) (1)
12.17 108 (100)
HC, g and (%)
NOx, g and (%)
2.11 108 0.17 108 0.42 108 0.04 108
0.72 106 1.03 106 12.21 106 17.95 106
(77) (6) (15) (2)
2.74 108 (100)
(2) (3) (39) (56)
31.91 106 (100)
N.-W. Kuo, P.-H. Chen / Journal of Cleaner Production 17 (2009) 1324–1330 Table 8 Annual energy use and CO2 emission of different accommodation. Accommodation type Hotel Bed and breakfast Campground Private home
Energy use (MJ) 7.18 107 4.03 107 2.51 107 0.51 107
(61%) (35%) (0%) (4%)
11.73 107 (100%)
Total
CO2 (g) 3.66 109 1.52 109 1.37 109 2.01 109
(42%) (18%) (16%) (24%)
8.56 109 (100%)
Penghu and ends at the point when tourists finish their whole trip and back to their original places. Life cycle inventory (LCI), the main focus of this paper, is a methodology for estimating the consumption of resources and the quantities of waste flows and emissions caused by or otherwise attributable to a tourism product’s life cycle. Consumption of resources and generation of waste (emissions) are likely to occur during each sector when tourists travel to, stay at, and leave from Penghu Island. Hence, the whole travel process of tourists is regarded as the system boundary of the life cycle inventory in this study. The whole travel process of tourists in Penghu Island was inventoried through questionnaires in this research. The research questionnaires consist of four parts: (1) basic data of tourists, (2) actual transportation behavior of tourists, (3) accommodation type that tourists stay, and (4) what kinds of recreation activities tourists choose when they stay in Penghu Island. Which indicators will be selected to provide a simplified representation of environmental loads? In general, tourism can be viewed as a composite service sector with three principal elements: travel, accommodation, and activities [24]. Environmental loads can arise from each of these three elements due to the consumption of natural resources and the production of wastes. Important indicators that were often mentioned in previous studies such as Kuo and Yu (2001) [12], Becken et al., (2001, 2002, 2003) [13–16], and USEPA (2000) [17] were selected here (Table 1). In addition, in order to compare the energy use and carbon emission of different sectors, energy use and carbon dioxide emission were all taken into consideration in each sector. In order to calculate the environmental loads per tourist per trip, or environmental loads per tourist per day, the amount of annual environmental loads generated by tourists in Penghu Island needs to be found first. How to calculate the amount of annual environmental loads generated by tourists? The following Equation (1) [12] is selected to use in this research. Then, data about environmental loads per tourist per trip, and environmental loads per tourist per day can be calculated.
Si ¼
X Ci Tj Pj
(1)
Table 9 Annual energy use and CO2 emission of different recreation activities. Recreation activity Sight seeing Historic sites visiting Landscape visiting Motorized water activity Swimming Nature watching Rafting Fishing Total
Annual energy use (MJ) 1.11 107 0.12 107 0.11 107 7.08 107 0.88 107 0.52 107 2.56 107 0.06 107 12.44 107
(9%) (1%) (1%) (57%) (7%) (4%) (21%) (0.5%)
Annual CO2 emissions (g) 5.45 108 0.59 108 0.54 108 45.74 108 5.55 108 2.55 108 16.34 108 0.38 108 77.14 108
(7%) (0.8%) (0.7%) (59%) (7%) (3%) (21%) (0.5%)
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Si: the amount of loads of i indicator, Ci: per capita data of i indicator, Tj: length of stay, Pj: numbers of the tourists of the ‘‘Tj’’. In addition, how can air pollutant emissions related to tourist transportation be assessed? The following Equation (2) is proposed here to calculate the quantity of air pollutants from various vehicles.
Qi ¼ Fi L N
(2)
Qi: total quantity of ‘i’ pollutant one year (g/yr), Fi: emission factor of ‘i’ pollutant (g/[km vehicle]), L: length of travel (km), N: number of vehicles per year (vehicle/yr). 3. Results and discussion Penghu, the biggest island around Taiwan, its area is about 128 km2, has diversity natural resources such as beautiful geological landscape. The number of local population is about 91,785 in 2006. Penghu Island receives about 500,000 tourists per year during 2004– 2006. According to the records from Penghu local government [25], the average number of tourists is 458,976 tourists during 2002–2006. The tourist data about length of stay, type of transportation (origin to Penghu Island), type of transportation (within Penghu Island), accommodation type, and recreation activity were found with structured questionnaires by stratified random sampling in August 2006. The number of effective samples is 407, and the basic information of tourists at Penghu Island is summarized in Tables 2–4. There are five main recreational areas in Penghu Island including: Magong, Basha, Shiyeu, Wanan, and Chimei. Magong is the major city of Penghu Island, where Basha and Shiyeu are in the north area, and Wanan and Chimei are small islands in the south area. Hence, the data about the different types of accommodation that tourists choose were collected in terms of each recreational area. For example, the percentage (%) of stay at different types of accommodation in Magong is shown in Table 4. These data are essential elements to calculate the environmental loads from tourists based on Equations (1) and (2). The per capita data used in this research are shown in Table 5. After calculating, the environmental loads of Penghu Island were shown in Tables 6–11. 3.1. Environmental loads in transportation sector Because most tourists travel to Penghu Island by airplane, about 99.97% of the annual energy use (4.155 108 MJ) and CO2 emissions (2.867 1010 g) is resulted from the airplane. With regard to the energy use of vehicles within Penghu Island, motorcycles consume the major part of energy (54%), while small shuttle buses use about the 11% of energy consumption (Table 6). In addition, motorcycles also contribute the most part of CO2 emissions (61%), and the total CO2 emission from transportation vehicles within Penghu Island is about 5.10 109 g per year. Moreover, indicators of CO, HC, and NOx emissions were also selected to show the air pollution problem from vehicles within Penghu Island (Table 7). In terms of CO and HC emissions, the major contributor is the motorcycle, while those generated from buses are relatively small. However, buses result in major part of NOx pollutant emissions (56%), and motorcycles only produce 5% of NOx emissions. The results of this study also indicated that air pollution control cannot rely on reducing one type vehicle use within the tourism sector, because different vehicles produce different pollutants. 3.2. Environmental loads in accommodation sector Most tourists stay at hotels when they travel to Penghu, but the energy intensity of a hotel is higher than that of other
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local government should develop and promote low energy intensity recreation activities.
Table 10 Annual energy use and CO2 emission of different sectors. Sector
Annual energy use (MJ)
Annual CO2 emissions (g)
Transportation (origin to Penghu Island) Transportation (within Penghu Island) Accommodation Recreation activity
4.15 108 (56%)
2.87 1010 (57%)
7.97 107 (11%)
5.10 109 (10%)
1.17 108 (16%) 1.24 108 (17%)
8.56 109 (17%) 7.71 109 (16%)
Total
7.37 108
5.00 1010
accommodation. According to the results shown in Table 8, tourists consume 7.18 107 MJ annually in the hotel sector, and it is about 61% of the total energy use in accommodation. At the same time, the accommodation sector results in 8.56 109 CO2 emissions annually. In addition, tourists also consume water, and electricity, and produce solid waste and wastewater when they rest in the accommodation; hence, other related loads’ indicators are also surveyed in this research. According to the results, tourists demand 2.78 108 L of water, and use 1.57 107 MJ of electricity per year, and such resource demand has exceeded the amount that Penghu Island can provide to tourists. For example, Penghu will face severe fresh water shortages (1.67 107 L/day) in 2022 [8]. In addition, tourists also generate 8.96 105 kg of solid waste, 3.81 107 g of BOD, and 1.91 108 L of wastewater per year, and the wastewater has also exceeded the capacity that local treatment equipment can provide. About 50% of the wastewater cannot be treated properly and has resulted in serious environmental pollution [8]. For example, untreated sewage (high BOD levels) is pumped into the ocean directly and then causes tourists and residents to suffer ill health, and lost economic opportunities for fisherman as a consequence of the contamination of fish stocks [8]. 3.3. Environmental loads in recreation activity sector In terms of recreation activity, the motorized water activity (such as sea motorcycle riding) consumes more energy and results in more CO2 emissions than others. The motorized water activity consumes 7.08 107 MJ (57%) of energy and generates 4.57 109 CO2 emissions annually (Table 9). This is because about 61.2% of tourists enjoy motorized water activities when they travel to Penghu (Table 2), and the energy intensity of the motorized water activity is the highest (236.8 MJ/visitor). In contrast, although 90.9% of tourists goes sight seeing, the amount of energy use of this recreation activity is relative small (1.11 107 MJ, 9%). This is because the energy intensity of sight seeing is relative low. Hence, in order to reduce the energy consumption and CO2 emissions, the
3.4. Energy use and CO2 emissions among different sectors According to the findings of this research, the transportation sector consumes the largest energy (4.95 108 MJ) (Table 10). About 67% of total energy (7.37 108 MJ) is used for transportation; in particular, when tourists use airplane to travel to Penghu Island. In contrast, the energy of transportation within island is relative small (only 11%). In addition, the energy use in the accommodation sector is about 1.17 108 MJ, and it is about 16% of total energy. This is because most tourists choose hotels when they stay at Penghu, and the energy intensity of hotels is the highest among the accommodation types. The bed and breakfast may be advocated as best choice for tourists because its energy intensity is low and local people can receive economic benefit directly. With regard to CO2 emissions, the transportation sector is still the major contributor. About 3.38 108 g (67%) CO2 emissions generated from the transportation sector; hence, if the CO2 emissions from the airplane can be improved, the carbon footprint of per tourists will reduce. However, it may be in a dilemma because islands always rely on airplane to carry tourists (tourism economic benefits), but the airplane actually consumes larger energy and emits more CO2 and other pollutants. Hence, the local government should propose effective strategies to let tourists stay at Penghu Island longer and reduce the frequency that tourists transfer between origin places and Penghu Island. 3.5. Environmental loads per tourist per trip After the LCA inventory, the data about environmental loads per tourist per trip can be found in Table 11. In general, per tourist per trip consumes 1606 MJ of energy, and 607 L of water, and emits 109,034 g of CO2, 2660 g of CO, 597 g of HC, and 70 g of NOx. In addition, per tourist per trip also discharges 416 L of wastewater, 83.1 g of BOD, and 1.95 g of solid waste. According to the findings of this research, the average length of tourists’ stay in Penghu Island is 3.2 days. Hence, environmental loads per tourist per day can be found further. In summary, per tourist per day consumes 501.9 MJ of energy, and 189.6 L of water, and emits 34,073 g of CO2, 831 g of CO, 187 g of HC, 21.7 g of NOx. In addition, per tourist per trip also discharges 129.9 L of wastewater, 26.0 g of BOD, and 0.61 g of solid waste. According to the findings of Becken, Simmons, and Frampton [16], energy use per day of an average domestic tourist in West Coast of New Zealand is 341 MJ. Hence, per Penghu tourist seems to use more energy than per West
Table 11 The environmental loads per tourist on Penghu Island. Basis
Indicator
Resource demanded
Energy used (MJ) Electricity used (MJ) Water demand (L)
Air pollution produced
CO2 emission (g) CO emission (g) HC emission (g) NOx emission (g)
Water pollution produced
Wastewater discharge (L) BOD discharge (g)
Solid waste produced
Solid waste discharge (kg)
Annual environmental loads 7.37 108 1.57 107 2.78 108
Environmental loads per tourist per trip
Environmental loads per tourist per day
1606 34.11 606.74
501.9 10.66 189.61
109034.0 2659.86 596.82 69.52
34073.1 831.21 186.51 21.72
1.91 108 3.81 107
415.58 83.12
129.87 25.97
8.96 105
1.95
0.61
5.00 1010 12.21 108 2.74 108 31.91 106
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Coast tourist in New Zealand. Besides, in terms of the environmental loads that local people produce, per Penghu tourist results in more environmental loads than the local people in Penghu Island; for example, the amount of solid waste discharge per tourist is 1.95 kg per day, while that of per local people is only 1.18 kg per day [26]. 3.6. The advantages and limitations of LCA approach According to the experience of this study, the LCA approach to quantify environmental loads from tourism is feasible and this new approach has the following advantages: (1) The whole trip can be inventoried with the LCA approach; hence, a complete description about the tourism impact can be figured out. (2) Environmental loads from different sectors can be compared. For example, we can compare the differences in energy use between transportation and accommodation sectors. (3) Different tourism itinerary products at the same destination can be compared. (4) Furthermore, it can help tour agencies to design tourism itinerary products with low environmental loads because the high environmental load sectors can be identified first and then be canceled. However, some limitations were also found in such LCA approach. It was not feasible to calculate data for all indicators at all sectors of the tourists’ holidays, so results could be conservative. For example, it was impractical to calculate data on water usage at the ‘transportation’ sector. It was also impractical to calculate data for all environmental indicators during the ‘activity’ sector, because of being unable to audit each activity or to collaborate closely enough with the various suppliers of activities. In general, data on energy use, and CO2 emission may be the common items that be calculated in each sector of the tourism industry. Another limitation of such research is the data quality because the per capita data concerning about tourism sector are still scare around the world; in contrast, most per capita data are concerning about the household sector. In addition, the hidden environmental loads should be investigated further. For example, the food transportation sector needs be considered, especially for the island tourism industry. A more extensive life cycle assessment of environmental loads’ outputs attributable to tourism needs to be initiated. The LCA may encompass indirect sources of loads embodied in various points of the tourism supply chain, including: construction, agriculture, and raw material provision. Other methods of industrial ecology such as Material flow Analysis (MFA) may be applied further. 4. Conclusions In recent years, industrial ecology is used to identify and reduce impacts from economic activities, and it has become an important tool to seek sustainable development for industries. However, most application cases of industrial ecology are about manufacturing, and the tourism industry is seldom studied within industrial ecology. The application of industrial ecology within tourism was investigated in this research in order to quality the environmental loads from island tourism. Environmental loads, in particular, those that resulted from tourists of Penghu Island were successfully surveyed and calculated with life cycle inventory approach in this research. According to the experiences from this research, industrial ecology may become an important tool for tourism management in the future.
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The life cycle inventory analysis of the environmental loads from tourism was investigated in terms of tourists (the demand sector of tourism system) in this study. The important task is to survey the information about tourists, and then the travel pattern data of tourists can be used to calculate the environmental loads per tourist per trip. The final results of this research can help stakeholder plan and to design a low impact tourism itinerary product. In addition, tourists can also learn how to travel with low environmental loads based on the findings of this research. On the other hand, the environmental loads from tourism can also be investigated in terms of tour companies (the supply sector of tourism system) with life cycle assessment. Hence, another approach is also important to identify the resources consumption and pollutants emissions of each tourism sub-system (e.g. catering, hotels, and entrainment facilities). The approach that environmental loads are inventoried in terms of business unit can help private companies how to reduce environmental loads in their operation and services. In order to achieve the goal of sustainable tourism development, the life cycle assessments in terms of tourists and business companies are all important. Furthermore, an advanced questionnaire will be developed in the next phase of our study to collect more detailed information about the travel pattern of tourists when they stay at one destination. Then, the relationship between environmental loads and vacation lifestyle of tourists will be examined further, because different vacation lifestyles may result in various degrees of environmental loads. References [1] World Trade Organization, editor. International trade statistics 2006. Switzerland, Geneva: World Trade Organization; 2007. [2] WTO, editor. Tourism 2020 vision. Spain, Madrid: WTO; 2004. [3] WTO. World Tourism Barometer. Spain, Madrid: WTO; 2005. [4] Go¨ssling S. Global environmental consequences of tourism. Global Environmental Change 2002;12:283–302. [5] Penner J, Lister D, Griggs D, Dokken D, McFarland M. Aviation and the global atmosphere, a special report of IPCC working groups I and III in collaboration with the Scientific Assessment Panel to the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer. UK, Cambridge University Press: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Publishing; 1999. p. 1–23. [6] Olsthoorn X. CO2 emissions from international aviation: 1950–2050. Journal of Air Transportation Management 2001;7:87–93. [7] WTO. International Conference on Sustainable Tourism in Small Island Developing States and Other Islands. Lanzarote (Spain); 1998. [8] Chen PH. The environmental impacts from island tourism: a case study in Penghu Island. Taiwan, Taipei. Graduate Institute of Tourism and Health Science, National Taipei College of Nursing; 2006. [9] Mathieson A, Wall G. Tourism: economic, physical and social impacts. London: Longman Publishing; 1982. [10] Mieczkowski Z. Environmental issues of tourism and recreation. Lanham: University Press of America; 1995. [11] Holden A. Environment and tourism. London: Routledge; 2000. [12] Kuo NW, Yu YH. An investigation of the environmental loads of Shei-Pa National Park in Taiwan. Environmental Geology 2001;40(3):312–6. [13] Becken S, Frampton C, Simmons DG. Energy consumption patterns in the accommodation sector: the New Zealand case. Ecological Economics 2001;39:371–86. [14] Becken S. Analysing international tourist flows to estimate energy use associated with air travel. Journal Sustainable Tourism 2002;10(2):114–31. [15] Becken S, Simmons DG. Understanding energy consumption patterns of tourist attractions and activities in New Zealand. Tourism Management 2002;23:343–54. [16] Becken S, Simmons DG, Frampton C. Energy use associated with different travel choices. Tourism Management 2003;24:267–77. [17] USEPA. A method to quantify environmental indicators of selected leisure activities in the United States. USA, Washington: US Environmental Protection Agency; 2000. EPA-231/R/00-001. [18] Go¨ssling S, Hansson CB, Horstmeier O, Saggel S. Ecological footprint analysis as a tool to assess tourism sustainability. Ecological Economics 2002;43:199–211. [19] Patterson MG. Environmental performance and eco-efficiency of the New Zealand tourism sector. Ecological Economics at the Cutting Edge: Meeting of the Australia and New Zealand Society for Ecological Economics. Auckland: University of Auckland; November 16, 2003. [20] Go¨ssling S, Peeters P, Ceron JP, Dubois G, Pattersson T, Richardson R. The ecoefficiency of tourism. Ecological Economics 2005;54(4):417–34.
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