28 June 2009

Global Green Certification Can-ªt Work says Responsible Travel Boss

Justin Francis in Africa

In a major swipe at global sustainable tourism criteria and, in particular Green Globe, Justin Francis, boss of Responsible Travel today put his cards on the table.

In an exclusive VISION interview, he said " Let"s take a reality check; two things:  First it"s so far been impossible to agree quality standards for normal hotel classification throughout Europe. Second Green Globe have been accrediting for 10 years now and they"ve only been able to globally classify less hotels than I can see ten minutes from my Brighton office."

"I"m not against classification per se" He continued, "But it has to take notice of local conditions. So I think that the Travelife system is good - dealing with specific sorts of hotels - and good local schemes are OK. Global schemes are "One size fits all solutions" and can"t work." Francis is calling for a major debate on the subject

The Global Sustainable Tourism Criteria (see www.sustainabletourismcriteria.org) were launched last October by UNEP and the UN Foundation for Sustainable Development with the support of 32 major global tourism players with an interest in sustainable tourism; from Sabre, Expedia and the Rainforest Foundation to Tourism Concern.

Green Globe Index was launched earlier this year to deliver a globally-recognised sustainable tourism system with few barriers to entry. The web based facility allows tourism providers to index their sustainable tourism efforts and address a rapidly-awakening global marketplace.

The Travelife sustainablility system was set up by the UK Federation of Tour Operators which includes TUI, Virgin Holidays and Thomas Cook.

Responsible Travel has been a trailblazer in responsible tourism. Founded by Justin Francis (an ex Bodyshop employee) in 2001 after he had completed an MSc dissertation on tourism; the company launched the Virgin Responsible Travel Awards amongst many other responsible tourism initiatives. The company has around 3,000 holidays available on its site which it sells on behalf of operators on a commission basis. It claims a 2007 turnover figure of £10m (US$15m €12m).

Full unedited text of Justin Francis" statement:

Sustainable Tourism Criteria & Accreditation - Holy Grail or folly?

At first thought a global sustainable tourism criteria or accreditation scheme might seem like a good idea - all organisations marketing sustainable tourism would need to comply with it, and tourists would know at a glance from a logo that the holiday met certain criteria.  Eco-labels have worked elsewhere so why not in tourism?   Here I will argue that in practical terms there is unlikely to ever be a global accreditation scheme, and that - while tourism accreditation schemes can be useful - such schemes are limited in what they can achieve in creating change. In fact, a global scheme could indeed be detrimental. 

Responsible tourism is not an easy concept to explain.  The impacts of tourism are complex and span cultural, economic and environmental issues.  Although I was told repeatedly in 2000 that calling our business "responsibletravel.com" would put off tourists more recently claims around responsible and sustainable tourism are believed to have real marketing value.  Naturally, fears have grown around 'greenwashing' - people exaggerating their claims to attract more business.  As a result some have called for a global criteria or accreditation scheme....

The hope would be to simplify the issues and the choices for tourists through use of a logo granted when organisations meet a checklist of criteria.  There are several reasons why this might be problematic, if not undesirable.

Local relevance
Firstly, tourism's impacts are very different in each place.  For example, water conservation and access to fresh water is a big issue in Kenya, but not in Ireland.  Poverty reduction through tourism is key in Peru, but not in Geneva.  The cultural impacts of huge numbers of cruise ship passengers visiting small Alaskan towns is significant, but irrelevant in Antarctica.  On a micro level tourists taking parking places reserved for the local community might be a big issue at one end of town, but academic to those at the other end of town with more parking. 

In reality there tend to be just two or three big issues facing tourism in any one place, and they are different everywhere.  Compared to these big issues other concerns are relatively minor.  A global set of sustainable tourism criteria or accreditation scheme with long checklists of criteria does not recognise these differences.  It does not force you to think about and address the big issues in that destination - instead it leads you to attempt to tick off lots of (probably easier) but less important things.

It could be argued that applying a top down global accreditation scheme or criteria is in fact the antithesis of responsible tourism, which seeks to work bottom up to involve local people in deciding what type of tourism suits them and to recognise that every place and every community is different.  It also goes against what we are seeing emerge from the market - lots of more locally relevant accreditation schemes.  A global scheme would be reductive; it would reduce destinations down to one common level rather than acknowledging what makes them different.

The unique role of tourists as "involved consumers"…
There are several additional reasons why the impacts of tourism are far more complex than those served by eco-labels in food, fisheries and timber production.  When you buy a tin of tuna with a Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) logo you can be confident that it's from sustainably managed fish stocks.  However, when you book a fully accredited 100% sustainable place to stay can you be confident that all the economic, cultural and environmental impacts have been managed?

The answer is 'no'. If the tourist decides to get drunk and be offensive to local people; use masses of water for baths, damage the coral whilst snorkelling; litter the Park; buy souvenirs made from endangered species; or stay in the hotel and spend no money within the local community then immediately the holiday is no longer 100% sustainable.  The fact is that the consumer (tourist) is part of the impacts of tourism, in a way that the person who buys a tin of tuna or fair trade tea from a supermarket is not. 

In short the impacts of tourism are totally different based of the type of tourist.  A small group of older cultural tourists have totally different impacts to a large group on an stag party.  Furthermore the impacts of tourism in the same place changes across different times of the year.  They are different during Ramadan than before or after; they are different during the harvest when local people need to be in the fields not serving in the hotel; they are different during the dry season when access to water is more at a premium.

Added complexity...
No tourism accreditation scheme or set of criteria can address the complexity of the different impacts from different types of tourists across different times of year, or the fact that even before this, tourism (with its cultural, economic and environmental impacts) is already more complicated than other sectors served by eco-labels.  I have not even begun to address the issue that just one holiday might encompass four restaurants, three hotels, two local tour guides, one Park, local transport, six producers of food, three different towns and four excursions. Are we really going to try to accredit each element of this?  I am reminded that it took Tesco over 18 months and over £100,000 to examine the cradle to grave impacts of a tin of baked beans...  

Simplicity isn't the answer
In short, it is wrong to try to pretend that we can confidently say whether a holiday is sustainable or not based on a check-list of global criteria.  Of course you might say that imperfect as any global scheme might be it would be better to at least try... 
 
This is where I disagree.  The idea that we must try to reduce and simplify down the complex impacts of tourism into a simple logo (gold, silver or bronze?) is based on the premise that we do not want the tourist to have to think too much.  In fact we want the opposite.  The tourist needs to be aware of the issues in the place they are visiting, and to think about their own impacts.  Krippendorf in his book The Holidaymaker said it best; he talked about the need for "rebellious tourists" questioning their holidays more actively.  Does a codified and largely meaningless logo from an accreditation scheme achieve this?  It does not - in fact it achieves the opposite - which is why I believe that a global accreditation scheme for tourism would be damaging to the responsible tourism movement. 

At responsibletravel.com we've always published something we call a 'making a difference statement' on every holiday page.  Here we ask the tourism provider to think about the big issues in their destination, and to explain how they have addressed them.  They must all meet a minimum standard, but of course some far exceed this.  The tourist can read these stories, get informed about the issues in the destinations and how they are being addressed.  It gets them thinking about their role, and their impacts, before they travel.  They can also read about other travellers' experiences, and their views on what the tourism provider is doing to address tourism's impacts.  Every review is sent back to the tourism provider - creating constant feedback about ways to improve (even the best accreditation schemes only make annual inspections).  
         
Tourism accreditation kite marks do not sell holidays
Finally, one last myth.  It is said that a global sustainable tourism kite-mark would gain recognition quickly and generate significant additional bookings for those who had achieved it, thus creating a market driven incentive.  We market over 700 accommodations; many of them have been accredited in some way.  They tend to come to us after being disappointed that their new logo did not generate new bookings - and why would it?  We find tourists are far most interested in the infectious stories in our making a difference sections - such as the local guide whose family have lived in the village for four generations offering a village tour and opportunity to learn to cook local dishes with his family - than in any logo. 

Many other market sectors have understood this and try to re-connect the buyer of a product with the producer through storytelling - just look at fair trade teas or coffees, the back of The Body Shop products, Waitrose and Marks & Spencers advertising and in store promotional materials.  This is how to sell responsible tourism, not by sticking a label on it.

On accreditation
You might think I am against tourism accreditation full stop.  I am not.  I think it plays a valuable part in helping raise standards in the supply chain and can work quite well with hotels, particularly those in similar destinations with similar types of tourists who face common problems.  The Federation of  Tour Operators Travelife scheme adopted by TUI and Thomas Cook and others is a good example of this and I believe it to have been successful in raising standards.  I am in favour of good local accreditation schemes focussed on the big local issues.

Having said that Professor Harold Goodwin at the International Centre for Responsible Tourism at Leeds Metroplitan University argues that -

'The case for certification has not been made, a great deal of money has been spent on it over the last ten years but there is still little or no evidence that it delivers for the businesses that have to pay for it. The labels are opaque; consumers do not know what the businesses have achieved. The labels are process based; the business gets rewarded for introducing low flow showers, not for reducing water consumption per bed night. The certification schemes cannot tell us what they have achieved, how much water has been saved, or waste recycled.

The Global Sustainable Tourism Criteria are comprehensive but no grading based on them can tell the consumer how high or low the average fossil fuel consumption is per bed night. Consumers are increasingly looking for a meaningful way of reducing their negative and increasing their positive impacts - labels do not offer that. They are too opaque; they lack meaning and local significance, we have no evidence that they affect consumer choice'.
In summary
I believe the most important thing is to be having tourists asking more informed questions of their holidays and themselves, and for those in the tourism industry to be thinking about the key big issues in their destination rather than one size fits all checklists of global criteria.  This is far more important than any attempt to create a global accreditation scheme or criteria, which in fact may be detrimental to both the encouragement of rebellious tourists and the identification of the biggest issues to address in each destination.

Justin Francis
June 2009                                


 

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• Difficult does not mean impossible
  
  

  Some of the same difficulties have arisen from creating Green Building Council certifications. A lot of the arguments stem from the fact that it is extremely difficult to have the same regulations for cities across the United States - what works in Phoenix may not work in Boston.However by providing an adaptable checklist where a business can receive 'credits' or 'points', and each region has these points weighted differently, this could have some potential in comparing 'apples to oranges'.Greenwashing has discredited many industries, especially those related to Tourism, and while a rating system will never be perfect, does not mean that the consumer should never be informed.

  By Alex Sommer, 29th June 2009 @ 14:43:43
• Global Green Certification Programs are Very Limited
  
  

  I am in total agreement with Justin Francis and his critique of global Green, Sustainable and/or Ecotourism criteria. I believe I speak with a certain authority because I have recently designed and managed the preparation of 2 leading national eco-certification programs. The first was the Morocco Rural Tourism Eco-certification program which was just awarded the ‘2009 Tourism for Tomorrow Award’ from the World Tourism and Travel Council. As well I am just completing the Botswana Green/Ecotourism Certification program. The preparation of these two initiatives provides support for two of Justin’s primary premises. Certification is ComplexTourism certification is complex and multifaceted. In the Morocco program we identified more than 175 criteria and that is only for ‘rural’ Morocco lodging and restaurant facilities. In Botswana we addressed the entire travel industry and that required 258 criteria. And Botswana is not a major destination such as say South Africa or Canada which, in theory, would require even more eco-certification standards (e.g. for marine-based facilities). Why so many? Well even in a small destination like Botswana there is a mix of city hotels, wilderness lodges, urban and rural guesthouses, mobile safaris and campgrounds. They simply cannot all be assessed with the same brush. Furthermore a facility that operates with a 100% solar should be rated the same as one that has 30% solar. Therefore it is difficult to see how a system like the Global Sustainable Tourism Criteria, with, I believe, only 38 standards and no distinction between mandatory and preferred can offer consumers a reasonable assessment of a facility or service. It has been argued that a system with 250 plus standards is unmanageable. Not so. When the auditor goes into the field to audit the business, they simply bring with them the appropriate assessment form. Local ApproachI also agree that certification programs require a local, bottom up approach. In both Morocco and Botswana we worked extensively with the travel trade on all aspects of the program. This even included detailed refinement of the final wording of each standard so that it was clear to the operators. In Botswana, for instance, we held regional workshops throughout the country when we were both developing the basic criteria as well as after we defined each of the standards. More than 350 travel suppliers attended these sessions and their input had a significant influence on all aspects of the final program. As an interesting anecdote, in every workshop we found the travel industry to be more rigorous in setting the standards than we, as consultants, proposed. This was particularly true when identifying the mandatory standards. As one operator mentioned, “Its our environment, we know what is absolutely required!”Finally, while I was preparing these standards, there was interest in establishing regional eco-certification standards for all of southern Africa. I put this question to more than 200 tourism suppliers in Botswana and none of them preferred a southern Africa program to that which was being proposed for Botswana. More than one said that they did not want to be included with other destinations nor did they see how the standards that were being developed for Botswana could be applicable to other countries in the region such as Zimbabwe or Namibia.Perhaps rather than focusing on global criteria there should be an International Tourism Accreditation Program that accredits the better national and regional programs.

  By James MacGregor, 29th June 2009 @ 13:56:52
• Tourists' Choice Proves Sucess
  
  

  At the Black Sheep Inn we built composting toilets, structures out of local natural renewable materials, planted organic gardens and native trees, collected rainwater, recycled gray water, worked side by side in the community because that IS who we are… We did all of this and more without advertising the Inn as being ‘ecological’ until we realized that other hotels were calling themselves ECO and doing far less than the Black Sheep Inn. We always figured that tourists and travelers should not come to this area just to poop on our toilets! We built the Black Sheep Inn providing quality service in the basic areas: hot showers, great food and comfortable rooms and beds. Ecological practices were just the way that we organized our infrastructure. Once we did advertise our ecological practices, we were awarded with tons of unsolicited publicity. We were both proud and astounded when we started winning awards. Between the publicity and awards we have been ‘eco-labeled’ without having to participate in expensive certification programs. To this day we do not ‘purchase’ advertising and we feel the same way about certification – we do not want to pay for an outsider to come in and judge, grade our operations. We do pursue any and all websites that have an ecological theme because we want to participate in a ‘movement’ towards ecological, community and conservation best practices. We also welcome change and improvement as a way of life.I agree with Justin Francis that global certifications schemes and criteria will not work. I hope that through these articles this important message can be heard. We do feel pressure to jump on the bandwagon of eco-certification… but that is the wrong reason to do anything in life. It negates why we chose to move away from the USA to rural Ecuador in the first place. sincerely, the black sheep of the family Tourists’ choice and word of mouth has worked extremely well for the Black Sheep Inn.

  By Andres Hammerman, 09th July 2009 @ 19:05:20
• Complex but not Mission Impossible
  
  

  The term eco label implies that companies can enter up some information on their sustainability and receive a label, which they will have in perpetuity. If this was the case it may follow that in a few years (subject to mass engagement) such a static label may be meaningless and offer little marketing support via supplier differentiation. However all standards in this area are evolutionary and should involve a continuous raising of the bar for entry that will reflect advanced performance and capability of travel and tourism providers, not a one time static submission. Criteria and indexing are a primary approach to take us beyond the tragically low levels of engagement we have in the global industry currently. Certification which in the case of Green Globe requires 248 points to be externally verified, requires companies to be at the intermediate to advanced stage of engagement and is far beyond simple labelling. The issue that seems to be at the heart of this debate is - do we try and get global engagement and action from less than 2% to over 50% by independent regional programmes or do we attempt a global base level of action that does not remain static and develop regional variations from this common base. Experience over the last 20 years suggests that the many existing regional programmes have failed to deliver mass industry action. Finally, success will relate to easily understandable programmes that will inform better choices by travel consumers.

  By Hugo Kimber, 03rd July 2009 @ 07:47:43
• responsiblility is "personal"
  
  

  I could not agree with Justin more... and will add more reasoning here.1. The whole concept of responsibility is "personal". It is something felt by a particular company or individual and the actions done to address this feeling of responsibility. This can be different for different companies, forget only destinations, regions, time of year etc... e.g. a company might want to focus on philanthropy as their main sustainable focus, whereas another company might want to focus on "greening the business operations"... both are equally important, but the priorities of two different companies might be different.2. Responsibility is a continuous, creative process, which keeps on changing, hence it requires an evaluation system that is continually changing... nothing that a "one size fits all" will ever do.3. We have got to learn to move on from standardisation. That is SO old age its archaic. We need to move on. Responsibility is about diversity and about appreciating the values of being diverse.. At socialtours.com, what we are trying to do is to find out if it is possible for a company to do its own audits (its cheaper, its flexible, but is easy to doctor), and use indicators developed to measure its RT policies and values (which can then be validated by clients through a feedback mechanism)...This I think is far more important, than putting a stamp on our website and operation (which means little in actual practice, and can be bought for a price)....Agreed, its far simpler to inform clients of how good you are if you have an eco-label, but responsibility is never meant to be easy... its a tough choice and a tough process to follow... And if you are genuinely doing the right thing, in tourism... the clients (and your stakeholders) will know!So we, for one, will never go for an eco-label... thats the easy way out!

  By Raj Gyawali, 03rd July 2009 @ 05:28:23