This text is part of the special Pleasures notebook
In an era of greenwashing, certifications are a way to soothe the conscience of travelers looking for the most responsible options. The catch is, not all are created equal. How do you separate the wheat from the chaff?
When we ask Geneviève Turner, general director of Tourisme durable Québec (TDQ), the answer is immediate: “It’s a real headache,” she admits. Logos — or labels — are not an absolute guarantee. “A logo can be a certification, an attestation or an accreditation,” explains Mme Turner. […] It is the rigor, the credibility and the audit that really make the difference.” Some logos can, for example, be obtained by filling out a simple self-assessment form.
On its website, TDQ states that a certification should be “issued by a certification body that determines, through an audit conducted by an independent third party, whether the company meets the standards and norms of its specifications.” TDQ favors certifications that are at least recognized by the Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC®), which has established global standards for sustainable tourism. The GSTC acts “as the international body providing assurance for the certification of sustainable tourism in three key tourism subsectors,” the website states.
The validity period of a certification can also indicate the seriousness of the approach. Some must be renewed annually, “but others can be every two, three or five years,” observes Geneviève Turner. It is also not because a company displays a logo that its certification is always valid. Additional research is sometimes necessary to ensure this. “Biosphere, for example, allows travelers to know the status of a company in real time. All you have to do is scan the QR code or click on the hyperlink on the certifier’s logo to access the information.”
How much does it cost?
A detail not to be overlooked: the cost of membership. Going through a certification process requires time, resources and money. “The Biosphere certification fee is 359 euros (CA$540) per year,” explains Olivier Donzelot, co-owner of the Nomad hotel, the first establishment in Quebec City to obtain certification in 2023. “You also have to take into account the hours of work to compile all the information needed for the audit, which is equivalent to around a hundred hours in the first year for Nomad. In total, the total costs of the certification process can represent, depending on the certification chosen, the type of audit, the type of business and its level of organization, from $5,000 to $10,000 in the first year. In subsequent years, costs generally drop significantly thanks to the experience gained and because it mainly involves updating your certification file with more recent data.”
For several months, the Destination Québec Cité tourist office has been supporting around fifty tourism businesses in the region in the Biosphere certification process, in addition to covering their membership fees for three years.
Beyond the logo
Among the reasons that motivated the Société du réseau ÉCONOMUSÉE® (SRE) to recommend GreenStep Sustainable Tourism to its members is the fact that the certifier is Canadian. “And it is recognized by the GSTC,” explains Carl-Éric Guertin, General Manager of the SRE. Beyond the logo, why does obtaining certification seem relevant to him? “Each of the companies then has an action plan. They have things to put in place to maintain the certification, but also to improve.” For the consumer as well as for the tourism distribution network, “it is a guarantee that the company respects the four pillars of the GSTC [la gestion durable, les impacts socio-économiques, les impacts culturels et les impacts environnementaux]he adds. It is a guarantee of quality.”
Ten members of the network have been certified to date, including À l’Orée des Champs, the lamb charcuterie economuseum, and the TournevenT farm, the oil producers economuseum in Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean.
However, just because a company is not certified does not mean that efforts are not being made to move towards sustainability, as Geneviève Turner points out. The important thing, according to her, remains long-term investment. “I think that any approach needs to be done in depth, otherwise it will not last over time,” she concludes.
This content was produced by the Special Publications Team of Dutyrelevant to marketing. The writing of the Duty did not take part in it.