‘A holiday is a holiday’: practicing sustainability, home and away

‘Behaviour change’ is one of the major concerns for academics and practitioners concerned with tackling climate change. Research amongst tourism geographers has conventionally focussed on the various choices that individuals can make, both before and during their holidays, to reduce environmental footprints, specifically through the use of sustainability criteria. However, whilst there is a developing understanding of the motivations for sustainable tourism practices, there is less appreciation of the relationship tourist practices have to everyday environmental activities in and around the home. This latter issue has been researched extensively by social psychologists and environmental sociologists. Accordingly, the paper will draw upon these two existing bodies of research to argue that a holistic understanding of ‘sustainable lifestyles’ is needed if effective behavioural change strategies for climate change are to be developed, revealing the complexities of contemporary environmental practices. Using data from a recent British Academy research project, the paper will explore the changing nature of sustainable lifestyles and will demonstrate the relationships between home- and tourism-based environmental practices. The paper will argue that whilst individuals are relatively comfortable with participating in a range of environmental behaviours in and around the home, the transference of these practices to tourism contexts can be problematic. This is particularly the case for high-consumption activities such as low-cost air travel. The paper concludes by arguing that both academics and policy makers need to re-frame their notions of ‘sustainable lifestyles’, transcending a series of practices and contexts.