Tourism & Hospitality
Let’s change the world through tourism.
GreenStep’s Sustainable Tourism division helps our clients become change-makers in the industry, and be part of the global movement towards responsible and regenerative travel in a way that allows them to credibly communicate their positive impacts.
By providing assessments, consulting, training, certifications, and stakeholder engagement programs, GreenStep helps tourism destinations and businesses measure and improve their sustainability performance.
Destination clients
Industry association clients
Hotels, resorts & other tourism businessses
Wondering how you measure up?
Your free Sustainability Score will let you work through the GreenStep Sustainable Tourism criteria to get an idea of where your tourism business or destination is doing well, and where you have room for improvement.
Sustainable Tourism criteria development process
From 2018 – 2020, GreenStep developed a set of criteria for both Businesses and Destinations. After over 18 months of research, surveys, solicitation of feedback and industry consultation, both sets of Sustainable Tourism criteria were authored to align with internationally recognized standards for sustainable tourism established by the Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC), Canadian Indicator Framework (part of Canada’s Agenda 2030), United Nations World Tourism Organization, and the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals, among others. Both sets of criteria are the basis of the sustainability assessment that is used to measure the sustainability performance of businesses and destinations globally.
In 2019, GreenStep underwent an application and review process with the Global Sustainable Tourism Council, for the Sustainable Tourism Business standard, and again in 2021 for the Destination standard, to ensure the criteria met these international standards and that the assessment itself was optimized for relevance, feasibility, and overall effectiveness for our members. Following the application and review process, both standards achieved formal recognition-status issued exclusively by the GSTC.
Definition of GSTC-Recognized Status: The GSTC-Recognized status refers to the standard itself, indicating that a sustainable tourism standard or system has been reviewed by GSTC technical experts and the GSTC Assurance Panel and deemed the content of the standard or system equivalent to the GSTC Criteria for sustainable tourism.
“Sustainable Tourism helped us focus our commitment to sustainability and look deeply into our winery operations. We have made changes and engaged our employees in finding additional opportunities for continued sustainability initiatives.“
Tourism products & services
Sustainable Tourism assessment tools
Not every tourism business or destination is ready for certification, but most want to know how they’re doing when it comes to sustainable tourism best practices, and what they can do next. GreenStep offers free and paid assessments for businesses and destinations to help you see where you’re doing well, identify gaps, set goals, and create an action plan for improvement.
Our partners
We’ve helped 6,000+ businesses since 2008.
“GreenStep has been an instrumental partner on our path of regenerative tourism. We have come to clearly understand who we are and what we can do to leave a positive impact on our community and the marine ecosystem – the Salish Sea.“
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Ready to get started on your sustainability journey?
Book a free consultation with one of our team members to discuss your ideas and key drivers, and we’ll see if there’s a good fit based on your needs.