Beyond Legal Compliance: The Environmental Performance of Luxury Safari Lodges

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to evaluate the environmental performance of luxury safari lodges along a performance pathway from legal compliance to best practice. The research results provide a conceptual framework and performance baseline against which lodges can then develop strategies to improve environmental performance. We achieve this aim by adapting the sustainability journey conceptual framework of Willard (2005), that describes five phases of progression along a business performance pathway, from legal compliance to best practice. Performance areas and indicators are developed against the adapted framework covering water, waste, energy and infrastructure development, applied to 12 luxury safari lodges within the South African context. The results show that poor performance was recorded for water management, whilst energy management fared slightly better. Overall performance in relation to waste and infrastructure development fared the best.

Keywords

• luxury safari lodges
• legal compliance
• environmental performance
• best practice