Clean, Green Holiday Dream

Want a holiday home abroad, but don’t want to be a carbon big foot? New green developments could provide a guilt-free solution… If the idea of a holiday home overseas conjures up queues of Brits racking up carbon emissions by flying out to concrete ghettos on the costas, think again.

Because as well as the new eco-properties at home, we are also seeing a growing number of holiday homes that will impact less on the immediate environment, the planet, and your pocket.

Richard Branson, he of the multiple fingers and pies, is hoping to be among the first providing the answer to a more moral holiday, with his purchase of the 120-acre island of Moskito, in the British Virgin Islands.

Branson is planning to spend the next three years converting it into a ground-breaking carbon-neutral eco-resort, complete with solar, wind, and possibly wave power, an organic farm and electric cars.

He’s not alone. For the deep of pocket, there are already several choices of eco-developments around the globe.

Eco-Homes On Thai Island

Currently at the top end of the market must be the Soneva Kiri resort in Thailand, which opens next year, and aims to be carbon-neutral by 2010.

The complex, which is set on the island of Ko Kut, and can only be accessed by speedboat, will be comprised of 46 villas among the island’s 100 acres of rainforest, and is constructed of locally-grown eucalyptus and makka wood.

With all the usual energy-saving gizmos, and electric powered golf carts and bicycles the island’s only transport, the villas may save the earth’s resources, but if you want to save money, look elsewhere.

Selling at $3 million for a 4-bed villa, buyers at the Soneva Kiri are unlikely to be influenced by low fuel bills.

West Indian Community

Or, if you are attracted to a green holiday home that makes a positive impact on the local community, Kittitian Hill, on St Kitts in the West Indies may fit the bill.

This un-gated community combines luxury private residences, a championship golf course, and spa with a philosophy of sustainable development.

With programmes to train local people in organic farming, computing, hospitality and small business development, Kittian Hill claims to represent a new business model for resort development in the Caribbean.

Offset Your Travel

Thailand, South Africa, India, the Seychelles: it seems there is hardly a far flung location that isn’t planning an eco-development. But herein lies the problem. No matter how green your destination, flying there produces tons of harmful emissions.

According to a calculator supplied by www.chooseclimate.org, a return flight to South Africa’s Zimbali Eco-resort would use up an individual’s total sustainable carbon emissions budget for almost a year and a half.

The answer, some say, is to offset your emissions. Companies such as climatefriendly.org will, for a price, ‘neutralise’ your carbon emissions.

The idea is that they calculate the amount of damage you have done and help you to make amends by put an appropriate amount of cash into carbon-reducing projects, such as tree planting or wind farm building.

Although it’s obviously preferable to doing nothing, carbon offsetting is not widely seen as the answer, being famously compared to donating to the RSPCA so you can keep on kicking your dog.

BedZed Abroad

Pooran Desai, co-founder of independent environmental organisation BioRegional says: "We support offsetting, but it’s in no way a solution to the problems caused by CO2 emissions.

"If we’re talking about tree planting there’s just not enough land on the planet."

BioRegional, which brought us BedZED, the UK’s largest eco development, has turned its attentions overseas.

Under the name of One Planet Living, and in partnership with developer Pelicano and the WWF, the organization is working on an ambitious eco-community in Portugal.

It is investing €1.1 billion in building the Mata de Sesimbra eco-tourism project south of Lisbon.

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