Rachel McCaffery, Virgin Atlantic’s sustainability consultant, said she avoided using the word “sustainability” when promoting the green concept. Words and phrases such as “authentic”, “engaging”, “human-centred” and “richness of experience” worked better, she suggested.

She said travel faced particular issues, adding: “It’s easy if you own product, but not if you are a tour operator that sells other people’s. We operate on tight margins, so thinking tends to be short-term. There’s always some crisis that stops supply chain management going to the top of the list, but that was the case with health and safety and consumer protection back in the day.”

Francis Torrilla, Kuoni’s managing director, specialist businesses, said that explaining cost savings helped, particularly with independent hoteliers. “A [sustainability] clause in the contract does nothing other than to make the supplier defensive from the start,” he said, adding that tackling issues in stages was a better approach. Torrilla told how he had gone around one property in Sri Lanka turning off all the TVs in rooms.