| Green Travel News |
To help travelers cut through confusing “green” claims, the Rainforest Alliance has launched an online database of sustainable tourism businesses in Latin America and the Caribbean. All hotels and tourism operators listed on SustainableTrip.org have either been verified by the Rainforest Alliance, certified by a third-party program or have been thoroughly vetted by a reputable organization.
What’s green certification? Certification and verification programs audit hotels—some also audit tour operators, restaurants, transportation companies and tourist attractions—using an extensive set of environmental, social and economic criteria. Businesses that meet a minimum level of compliance with these criteria become verified or certified. They earn the right to use the program’s logo so that travelers know they are sustainable.
Users of the new website can search for hotels and tour operators by specific certification or verification, by country and by type of destination (e.g., beach or farm).
In recent years, a multitude of certification programs have cropped up, again raising the question: how do you know they’re not just certifying any hotel that pays a fee, regardless of sustainability? The recently founded Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC) provides guidance through the jungle of certification programs. This international initiative, comprised of renowned sustainability experts, has created a set of minimum sustainability criteria which certification programs must comply with in order to obtain GSTC accreditation. So GSTC is a sort of “certifier of certifiers”—they accredit certification programs to ensure that their criteria meet baseline standards.
The Rainforest Alliance is among the founding members of the GSTC. It offers Rainforest Alliance Verification, an evaluation of a business’ commitment to sustainability that measures their progress and helps to prepare them to become certified. Once a business gets Rainforest Alliance Verification, it needs to become certified within two years by a certification program, if one is available where the business is located.
