New Tool to Evaluate the Environmental Impact of Tourism

The team of the European project Greentour, coordinated by researchers from the UNESCO Chair in Life Cycle and Climate Change (ESCI-UPF), has published a new article in the journal Sustainability presenting an innovative tool to assess the environmental impact of tourism at both destination and establishment levels.

Objectives and Context

The article, entitled Tool for Greener Tourism: Evaluating Environmental Impacts, presents a methodology based on Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and introduces the first tool designed to comprehensively assess the environmental impact of tourism activities at both the establishment and destination level.

The tool aims to evaluate and quantify a broad range of environmental impacts across key tourism subsectors—accommodation, food and beverage services, leisure activities, as well as transport and waste management. Its main objective is to support more sustainable decision-making by identifying environmental hotspots. The assessment covers nine impact categories, among the most relevant being climate change, water scarcity, eutrophication, acidification, and fossil resource use.

• Climate change

• Water scarcity

• Freshwater and marine eutrophication

• Acidification

• Fossil resource use, among others.

This approach enables the identification of tourism’s main environmental hotspots and supports the design of tailored strategies for improvement.

Materials and Methods

Applied in real destinations
The tool was tested in four tourist destinations in the SUDOE area (Spain and Portugal): Lloret de Mar, Rías Baixas, Guimarães, and the Camino Lebaniego. It evaluates the environmental performance of accommodation, restaurants, and tourism activities using a hybrid bottom-up/top-down approach.

How it works
Establishments provide data via an online platform covering energy use, water, food, and cleaning products. These are automatically translated into environmental impacts using preloaded databases (Ecoinvent, Agribalyse, World Food LCA). The tool also incorporates transportation and waste data at the destination level, enabling a comprehensive footprint assessment.

Results and Discussion

The analysis revealed that transportation is the main contributor to tourism’s environmental impact (60–96%), especially in air-travel-dependent destinations. Food and beverage services are the second-largest contributor (up to 26%), followed by accommodation (1–14%).

The tool’s results showed clear differences between destinations: Rías Baixas had the lowest average carbon footprint per tourist (152 kg CO₂ eq.), while Guimarães had the highest (323 kg CO₂ eq.), due to the nature of their tourism offerings. Electricity consumption and high-impact foods like red meat and dairy were also identified as critical impact areas.

Thanks to its user-friendly design, the tool helps establishments obtain automatic reports, while destination managers can compare aggregated data to support policy and planning.

Contribution to climate change [kg CO2 eq. /tourist]

Conclusions and Implications

This is the first tool to evaluate the environmental impact of tourism using nine indicators, not just the carbon footprint. Tested in four destinations, it showed that transport is the main contributor to emissions. Despite data collection challenges, the tool is robust, free, and adaptable worldwide. It supports decision-making for both public and private stakeholders. Greentour helps design sustainable strategies and encourages responsible tourism. Future updates will enhance its precision and expand its use.