While so much of travel’s sustainability mission is about the bigger picture, sometimes, it’s about the smaller details, like big tubs of Nutella and butter dispensers.

These are just some of the ways a Tui hotel in Austria has become a model for best practice for the 13,000 properties around the world the operator currently sells.

Tui Blue Montafon last month won the operator’s Carbon Reduction award for the most significant – although unspecified – reduction in emissions across its portfolio.

The Nutella was, of course, only a small part of the drive, with food and beverage regional manager Axel Herfurtner tasked with removing plastic from the buffet – including containers of the popular chocolate spread.

“We looked for a machine to make it, but you have to buy the nuts and they are expensive,” he said. “Now we buy a 10kg tub instead.”

Butter was another issue, but an ingenious machine now dispenses portions. Tablecloths are gone too, and have been replaced with compostable paper napkins.

These small details all count, like calculating the CO2 added to beer to give it fizz and then including it in offset totals. Sourcing food locally is another priority and, although some clients are initially sceptical, all the hotel’s wine is Austrian, reducing food mileage.

Of course, it is still the bigger things that matter most, and here in the Alps, the Montafon has a distinct advantage. It opened in 2020, making it easier to be greener from the start, with better insulation and LED lighting throughout.

Its location, in a valley with gushing rivers, means the electricity supply is 100% renewable – important because this is by far any hotel’s biggest source of carbon emissions, typically around 70%.

Heating is another big power drain, but in Montafon, the town’s biomass power plant provides the answer, using agricultural and forest waste, which is claimed to be climate neutral. Mountain spring water, meanwhile, is literally on tap.

Tui knows not all locations offer these benefits, but it nevertheless regards Montafon as a forerunner and has identified other properties for similar innovations, with green electricity a focus. A project is under way in Turkey, where huge inland fields of solar panels are beginning to power 14 coastal hotels.

To reach net zero by 2050, Tui has set interim targets for the period to 2030, which include a 46.2% reduction in CO2 from hotels, 27.5% from cruise and 24% in airline emissions. Tui’s airline emissions make up 77% of its total, with cruise contributing 13% and hotels 8%.

“The challenge is much more in our hands with hotels,” said Tui’s sustainability spokesperson, Christian Rapp. “The main challenge for cruise and airlines will be sustainable fuel. Here, we are much more dependent on outside companies to develop and produce it.”

Overseeing all of this is Tui group director of sustainability Kathrin Mollers, who is adamant about Tui’s purpose and mission. “We see tourism as a force for good,” she said. “It promotes tolerance and understanding – crucial in these times when people are going in a strong [politically] right direction.

“It’s important to promote cultural understanding and also poverty reduction, but tourism does leave a footprint, and we’re very aware of that.”

Tui clients can expect to see many of the lessons learned in Montafon applied to other properties worldwide. Once given the overhaul, hotels will be singled out for promotion to consumers with a new labelling system.

There is a lot that can be done, particularly in Tui’s 424 owned, managed and franchised hotels, albeit an admittedly small proportion of the 13,000 it sells.

‘Do-tank’

Montafon is itself a destination already known for its innovative approach to sustainability. The town set up PIZ Montafon in 2021 – PIZ standing for Progressive, Innovative, Future-orientated – to guide local businesses through a transition towards sustainability and act as an innovation hub.

“It’s a think tank and a do-tank,” said its sustainability manager, Jessica Ganahl. “The first goal is to raise awareness. We are in a really rural area, and climate change is not something that’s in people’s minds very strongly.”