Green Globe launches sustainable tourism certification

Certification body Green Globe has unveiled a new standard for sustainable tourism, with new criteria that will emphasise the role of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in the sector.

The organisation, which provides certification and training to various travel agencies and tourism businesses across the world, has launched the new International Standard for Sustainable Tourism V1.7.

The new standard clarifies and simplifies details for some categories such as health and safety, bribery and corruption, and disaster management and emergency response.

It also includes guidance on food and beverage and local livelihoods, as well as ISO 26000 principles, which gives business indications on how to behave ethically and responsibly.

Green Globe director of communications Bradley Cox said, “The Green Globe Standard is an industry accepted collection of compliance indicators applied to individual sustainability criteria which have been developed over the last 20 years.”

He added that the new standard puts great attention to corporate social responsibility (CSR), as well as criteria relating to green meetings, in the so-called meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions (MICE) sector.

“This is helpful and a new challenge for our growing membership of congress centres looking to contribute to the sustainability of the MICE industry”, Cox said.

Speaking to Blue & Green Tomorrow in March, Salli Felton, CEO of the Travel Foundation, said that the only way for sustainable tourism to flourish was for the industry to work in genuine partnership with holiday destinations.

The issue of whether growth in the tourism sector is desirable is up for debate in Blue & Green Tomorrow’s Sustainable September event in London – tickets for which are on sale now.

Photo: Britt Reints via flickr

Further reading:

Sustainable tourism is an instrument to ‘protect nature and alleviate poverty’

Why tourism can be a force for good in the developing world, and why it isn’t

‘No tourism if you kill the environment’, Philippines ecotourism conference hears

Travel Foundation: sustainable tourism will soon be ‘the only way to do business’

The Guide to Sustainable Tourism 2014