Can you explain how Green Globe’s certification process aligns with the SDGs?
Currently, we have 44 standards and 385 underlying indicators on how to achieve them, 100 of which are mandatory. These are aligned with the SDGs, so our members will automatically be SDG-compliant if they meet these standards.
In fact, Green Globes predates the SDGs. We are the brainchild of the 1992 Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit, the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED). By the end of 1994, 19 travel industry associations supported the program and promoted Green Globes to their members through joint marketing strategies. After the SDGs were defined in 2015, we adopted them.
For some goals it is clear how tourism can contribute to their achievement. For others it is less clear, for example how businesses can achieve indicators that meet SDG16 (Peace and Justice) or SDG3 (Good Health).
When talking about health, an important question for us is: how do you as a company treat your employees? Are your employees insured? Are they given enough time to recover from illness? What services do you have in terms of health workshops and awareness campaigns?
When it comes to peace and justice, we look at, for example, how the company ensures the protection of children, whether it gives employees the opportunity to join trade unions, etc. But it’s not just that: it’s also important to train employees how to de-escalate certain situations, or, unfortunately, which is increasingly important in today’s world, to train employees in disaster management and emergency response, such as in natural disasters or terrorist attacks.
How does the certification process work?
We do not issue handouts or templates because every company works differently – depending on location, size, work culture and local culture. That is why we want the way our standards are implemented to ultimately benefit your business. Sustainable results can only be achieved if our standards become a natural part of your company’s daily work and are not perceived as a burden.
We have an online system where new members (mainly hotel certifications) can easily join and progress step by step. As soon as you do something, you need to upload the evidence. Then our auditors check it both online and during on-site audits. We carry out on-site audits every two years. We have members who have been with us for 15 years, but what they did in their first and second audits is far from what we recognize today, so we need to regularly adjust to new developments, technologies or scientific discoveries.
How often do you adjust your standards to accommodate new developments?
We review our standards twice a year. However, these biannual reviews are not about new developments. We need to make sure that our standards and indicators are meaningful to local businesses after a period of implementation and are actually being applied. For example, we don’t want hotel employees to need a university degree to understand our standards. So, if something is unclear, we need to rephrase it.
Every few years it undergoes a major revision, implementing all the new developments of recent years, but the structure remains the same: the first part is about sustainable management, the second and third are about socio-economic and cultural aspects (human resources policies, connections with the local community), the fourth is the largest section on environmental practices and “green” indicators such as resource management, purchasing practices, wildlife policies, etc.
Hotels in particular generate a lot of waste because they accommodate many people. What kind of efforts are Green Globe certified companies making in terms of resource management?
This starts with purchasing policies: suppliers with recycling or packaging recovery policies should be preferred, or packaging should be reused. Plastic bottles should be replaced with glass bottles. Buffets are naturally a significant contributor to food waste. Smart planning is essential here.
Another factor, obviously, is water resources. Getting the basics right, like water-saving showerheads and low-flow faucets, is key. If you have a pool, you need a way to recycle and reuse water. But we also consider how the chain of command works. If the caretaker finds a leaky faucet, how long will it take to fix it?
It’s also about raising awareness. If the hotel takes advantage of its location near beautiful mangroves, it should be clear that wastewater should not go into the mangroves. But it still happens in many places. And it takes our help and the help of other certification bodies to make sure companies change. We send people to inspect every two years, but the government doesn’t.
How does Green Globe support the empowerment of local communities and their participation in the tourism industry, especially in areas where tourism plays a key role in economic development?
There are some binding metrics. You want to hire local staff and make sure that local staff are paid a living wage, but that doesn’t necessarily have to be minimum wage. If you’re an employee in this industry who lives in a tourist area, you’re likely going to face a high cost of living. You have to take that into consideration.
Another consideration regarding staff is its diversity: measures should be taken to combat discrimination on the grounds of gender, sexual orientation, religion, etc.
When companies are in contact with Indigenous communities, how do you ensure that they are acting in a way that respects their wishes when it comes to tourism in those areas?
Especially when building a new hotel or resort, it’s important to ensure equality with the surrounding community from the start – you don’t want to end up with a particular beach being closed off to locals because it’s now reserved for tourists, for example.
Additionally, we encourage companies to involve local entrepreneurs from day one. And the products sold in the hotel gift shop, for example, should involve local entrepreneurs. If there is local art and the community wants to display it, they should be given the opportunity.
You also want guests to learn how to respect the local community. Sacred sites should be signposted. Rules of behavior should be clear. Many guests actually want to learn about the local culture. In a hotel, this can be done simply by passing by. If there is an elevator, you can encourage them to take it through posters or a short video playing on a screen. Information brochures can be posted in reception and breakfast rooms.
Another aspect is guided tours. It is important that the tours are led by local people and allow them to decide for themselves what they want to communicate and how. In general, the aim is to understand how local communities want to be involved and to find appropriate and respectful ways to collaborate.
Can you share some examples of best practices from your members?
One hotel in Belize implemented a triple shift system to ensure that childcare was always available for everyone in the hotel’s community, meaning that one staff member was always available to look after the children, even when the others were at work or in their free time.
Another example is one of our certified hotels in Thailand, which is using a dehumidification system developed by a start-up to produce drinking water for guests from humid air.
How does Green Globe help certified companies effectively communicate their sustainability efforts to their customers?
We have a PR department that is solely dedicated to this. As soon as a company is certified, we have to spread the word through social media, videos and newsletters. We also work with platforms like booking.com, where hotels need to be certified by a third party like Green Globe to be given priority in their listings. This also encourages more people to choose sustainable hotels.
What do you think are the biggest challenges and opportunities facing the sustainable tourism industry going forward?
Tourism is always one of the first economic sectors to be hit hard by global crises: wars, the worsening climate crisis, pandemics, etc. But it is also a very resilient sector that bounces back every time. It is also a very old industry: people have always traveled, one way or another.
What is clear is that holiday destinations are moving away from mass tourism as the environment can no longer accommodate it. Moreover, the younger generation is hesitant to travel to faraway places. They don’t want to hop on a plane to the Maldives just to chill out at a resort. If they are going to travel abroad, they want to experience the country for themselves. This also means that local tourism will play a bigger role.
But I don’t think they’ll stop traveling altogether. The question for them is simply: how can they travel in the most sustainable way?
Birute Pelayo is CEO of Green Globe.
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