It's not every day I come up with an idea worth millions of dollars. But my craziest ideas often come the hour before taking the stage at a conference or corporate presentation. In this case, it was at the first-ever green travel summit held this week in Newport Beach, CA.

Highlights from the two-day event included lessons learned from corporate travel executives with companies such as Sun Microsystems and AT Kearney as well as industry leaders from Fairmont Hotels, Caribbean Cruise Lines, and Portland's Doubletree Hotel.

And for those travel companies looking to get their green message out, CNN's Olivia Zaleski provided great advice to the attendees, telling them to:

1. Be your own publicist (because no one will be as passionate and sincere about your green accomplishments as you are),
2. Be transparent (facts are your best line of defense), and
3. Be unsatisfied. (Noting that as much as Gary Hirshberg has done for Stonyfield Farm, he continues to feel there's much more to do. For Olivia, this means she'll continue to check back with him because he hasn't declared victory.)

The first day ended with Aspen Skiing Company's Executive Director of Sustainability, Auden Schendler, describing the difficulties of merging green initiatives with a luxury brand. Often sustainability presentations include a slide about swapping out the lighting, but for Auden's employer this was non-negotiable (luxury customer experience trumps in-room CFLs). And so he needed to explore other areas and told stories of efforts that worked and those that didn't, but Auden and the company continue to push forward. Near the end of his talk he showed the cover of their CSR report. The picture on the front isn't a beautiful image of skiers on a snowy mountain but instead a glossy picture of barrels of waste they cleaned up at their property.

I knew one of the questions my panel would be asked on Tuesday would deal with the topic of green innovation and the travel industry. And I figured I'd talk about cradle-to-cradle innovators like Valley Forge Fabrics (who make bedding from 100 percent recycled polyester and will take it back to recycle and sell again) and upcycler Tom Szaky of TerraCycle. I've written before about how Tom's company takes branded garbage and turns it into branded goods (see "Tom Szaky Writes Garbage"). One of the reasons I enjoy talking with Tom is that his innovations often come from being financially constrained and even though we can't be happy about the current state of the economy, in a free market tough times can foster innovation.

And so, Tuesday morning I listened to James Currie, Brand Ambassador of &Beyond, talk about reclaimed land in South Africa and how his company engaged the local population to revive the Phinda community. More than a story of reclaiming land that had been mismanaged and ravaged for over fifty years, the company worked to return the land to its tribal owners and now leases it back from them. I later talked with James about how difficult these efforts can be but also how important it is for a company to be willing to make mistakes as they push the boundaries in creating new models for sustainability and biodiversity.

Phinda looks beautiful and I thought about how much I want to take my kids on a safari, and see the Seychelles, and maybe even a South American glacier. But I also worry that with the accelerating impact of climate change that there's not going to be enough time. And that's when it hit me -- the $100 million idea.

Guilt trips. Certainly we want to see the pyramids. But maybe the trip I should take with my kids is a visit to our new "historical" sites. Instead of a cross-country baseball park trip, maybe we can go to China for two weeks and see the ribbon cutting for three new coal-fired power plants. Or stroll through a FEMA trailer park in New Orleans? Maybe a tour of life without nature in Chernobyl?

Is there a market for "help make this history" tours? Trust me, some college kid is going to figure this out. And after they earn their first million, I expect him or her to buy me a beer and tell everyone at our next Greener by Design conference that I gave them the idea.

 

John Davies is vice president of GreenBiz Intelligence, a unit of Greener World Media.

_{Image CC licensed by Flickr user covilha.}