The Scarlet Hotel and the answer to the eco-luxury dilemma
Is eco-luxury a contradiction in terms?
It is one of the few areas where the most fervent eco-warrior and the most frivolous consumer can agree, albeit for very different reasons. For the deep green environmental campaigner most eco-luxury projects are the very definition of "greenwash"; better than non-green alternatives, but still pandering to a system of entirely unsustainable high-end consumption. Meanwhile, many dedicated followers of fashion also regard eco-luxury as an oxymoron, although this time because they see a supposedly luxurious product or service being compromised by environmental considerations.
Both schools of thought have a point. Many high-end green products have wafer-thin environmental credentials and singularly fail to address the over-arching tension between planetary constraints and encouraging consumption. Equally, if you are anything like me you have heard plenty of horror stories from friends who visited an "eco-lodge" or bought some "eco-shoes", only to find that the experience was less than perfect. The best (or should that be worst) one involved a "luxury" green hotel that charged a fortune for an experience that was so "back to nature" it pretty much equated to spending a week living in a decrepit shed.
