Why look for sustainability certified hotels or restaurants?

Sustainability certifications and eco-labels guide both the tourism industry in enhancing sustainability within businesses and travelers in making more sustainable choices.

How do we know if a certification is reliable?

It’s unfortunately a bit of a jungle out there. According to research, in tourism alone, there are more than 150 different certifications. Identifying which certifications to trust and what they each stand for can be a very exhausting task.

The Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC), which was established by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) and the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), has launched a set of minimum standards (GSTC Criteria) for businesses, governments, and destinations. Certification companies can apply to be accredited or recommended by GSTC, to indicate these minimum standards are followed. To identify whether the certification was accredited, GSTC places a mark of quality (Accreditation & Recommendation) to the Certification companies that chose a neutral process to confirm that they certify businesses such as hotels or destinations. The Certification companies then clearly state the GSTC mark as an indication of accredited certification.

When integrating certifications into the TripDoodler transparency score, we look for their accreditations and recommendations and make the communication available on TripDoodler.com for full transparency.

In supporting a strong industry standard, TripDoodler is also a member of the GSTC.

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Green Key

Our first certification integration partner was Green Key. With 20 years experience and more than 4.000 establishments across 6 categories, Green Key is one of the oldest and largest worldwide certifications in tourism. 

GreenKey is a certification issued by the non-profit Foundation of Environmental Education (FEE) and is focused on the environmental pillar of GSTC.

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They are a leading eco-label that is GSTC recognized, dialog-based, transparent and fulfills regular audits and third-party verifications. Look for the Green Key logo when searching more sustainable places on TripDoodler.(* internal link https://app.tripdoodler.com/) 

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Since the initial partnership with Greenkey, we have implemented more certifications. See the full list of certifications displayed within TripDoodler here (* internal link https://www.tripdoodler.com/what-are-sustainability-parameters) 

How are certifications shown on TripDoodler?

In TripDoodler, the certifications are displayed on the profile of the business. When you click on one of the search results, you'll clearly see the certification logo. If you'd like, you can dive a bit deeper into the information of each certification.

Does every business in TripDoodler have certifications?

No. We show businesses with at least one sustainability parameter identified by a user, or that have a certification (like Green Key, for example).

How can sustainability user ratings help businesses?

The majority of businesses don’t have a certification because of the lengthy and difficult process to get. This is why it's so important that we as travelers raise our voices and start acknowledging the sustainability actions we see on our way. 

We assist businesses on several levels when we rate on TripDoodler. Through our ratings, businesses can easily discover which aspects of their sustainability initiatives are noticed and appreciated by the customers. They can also assess how their practices differ from those of their competitors and examine the overall information to start or continue their sustainability journey with ease. 

How are the parameters chosen?

TripDoodler guides travelers to easily identify sustainability at the places they visit through a set of objective parameters. Not sure what to look for? No worries, we've got you covered.(https://www.tripdoodler.com/what-are-sustainability-parameters) 

Learn a bit more about GSTC

GSTC was established to create one sustainable standard within tourism. This is called the GSTC Criteria, which is divided into two categories - a Destination Criteria for policymakers and destination managers and an Industry Criteria for hotels and tour operators.

The aim is to develop a common language about sustainability in tourism. The Criteria is designed according to the pillars of sustainability identified by GSTC:

1. Sustainable management

2. Socioeconomic impacts

3. Cultural impacts

4. Environmental impacts

Since destinations have their own culture, environment, and laws, the Criteria are designed to be adapted to the local conditions and are supplemented by additional Criteria for the specific locations.

This ensures that they're adaptable to different destinations and don't harm them in any way. The GSTC Criteria form the foundation for the Accreditation for Certification Bodies (eg. Green Key) that then verify the individual hotels/accommodations, tour operators/transport providers, and destinations as having sustainable policies and practices in place.

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