Meaning is one of the most elusive and ubiquitous properties of tourism spaces. This paper analyses the ambiguity of meaning in the materiality of tourism sustainability. Sustainable development and its three interrelated principles of holism, equity and futurity have now seriously entered the lexicon of the tourism academe whilst also securing a strong footing in many tourism spaces, the tourism industry, marketing and promotion. Concerned with the materialization of sustainability (how it is brought into material being, its visual and tangible realization) this paper focuses on how the discourse of sustainability has been translated into the use (and misuse) of certain materials.