Green Tourism Business Scheme
What is the Green Tourism Business Scheme?
The purpose of the Green Tourism Business Scheme (GTBS) is to provide guidelines to tourism businesses on how to make their operations more sustainable while still delivering a high quality service. The GTBS encourages organisations to consider a wide range of social and environmental factors, as well as up-to-date technological developments.
Green Tourism businesses are those actively engaged in reducing the negative environmental and social impacts of their tourism operations.
How did we achieve a Green Tourism Gold award?
In order to achieve a Green Tourism award we met the criteria set out by the GTBS. There are over 150 individual measures in the criteria which focus on 10 different areas. Each business is scored on up to 60 measures by a qualified grading advisor and the results will establish whether we have achieved a Gold, Silver or Bronze award.
The 10 areas that the criteria cover are:
- Compulsory- compliance with environmental legislation and a commitment to continuous improvement in environmental performance
- Management and Marketing - demonstrating good environmental management, including staff awareness, specialist training, monitoring, and record keeping
- Social Involvement and Communication - of environmental actions to customers through variety of channels and range of actions, e.g. green policy, promotion of environmental efforts on the website, education, and community and social projects
- Energy - efficiency of lighting, heating and appliances, insulation and renewable energy use
- Water- efficiency - e.g. good maintenance, low-consumption appliances, flush offset, rainwater harvesting, as well as using eco-cleaners
- Purchasing - environmentally friendly goods and services, e.g. products made from recycled materials, use and promotion of local food and drink, and use of FSC wood products
- Waste - minimisation by encouraging, the 'eliminate, reduce, reuse, recycle' principle, e.g. glass, paper, card, plastic and metal recycling; supplier take-back agreements; dosing systems; and composting
- Transport - aims to minimise visitors car use by promoting local and national public transport service, cycle hire, local walking and cycling options, and use of alternative fuels
- Natural and Cultural Heritage - on site measures aimed at increasing biodiversity, e.g. wildlife gardening, growing native species, nesting boxes, as well as providing information for visitors on the wildlife on and around the site
- Innovation- any good and best practice actions to increase a business’s sustainability that are not covered elsewhere
For further information about Green Tourism Business Scheme, please visit www.green-business.co.uk
