OAKVILLE, CANADA—Green Key Global, EcoStay Certified and Greenview, three leaders in hospitality sector environmental stewardship, announced a triple partnership that will encourage hoteliers across Canada and beyond to join forces in meaningful sustainability. The partnership will enable property owners and managers to fund important conservation projects, measure their progress, and be a part of a shared environmental legacy of nature and beauty.
Green Key Global is a leading environmental certification body whose five level eco-rating program helps members leverage organizational Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities to support sustainable initiatives, and improve overall fiscal performance and community relations.
EcoStay Certified is a hospitality sustainability program that unites hoteliers and their guests in a shared environmental initiative, engages today’s discerning traveler in meaningful travel choices, and offers a unique funding model that helps hoteliers implement energy saving and emission reducing facility upgrades.
Greenview is a leading sustainability consultancy in travel and tourism with a company mission to catalyze sustainability by leveraging the power of data, common guidelines, best practices, and innovation.
Through its partnership with Greenview, EcoStay Certified will deliver a new, innovative portal system that makes it easy for member hotels to track, measure, and improve in areas of energy use, sustainability and social responsibility. The Greenview system offers best practices features specifically designed to help hotels improve their performance over time, save money, reduce emissions and communicate their progress through a streamlined system, to all stakeholders. “Leveraging the power of data gives hoteliers a window of insight into one of their biggest costs,” says Eric Ricaurte, Founder of Greenview. “We are pleased that our system will be helping EcoStay members monitor their key business metrics.”
The EcoStay Motherland Forest
To truly engage today’s eco-traveler, hoteliers need to look beyond operational impact control. Recognizing this, EcoStay Certified announced the development of the EcoStay Motherland Forest; a highly visible parkland of carbon sequestration, wildlife habitat, education and cultural heritage. Located in Western Canada and exclusively supported by EcoStay member hotels and tourism industry sponsors, this parkland will be one of the most important collaborative reforestation projects in the country, and one of the first to be awarded the world-renowned Gold Standard certification for environmental projects and transparency. This summer, the project will restore 55 hectares, or about 90 football fields, of degraded land with native boreal species trees that will sequester an estimated 120,000 tons of carbon over the next 50 years, or the equivalent emissions of approximately 480 billion kilometers of car travel.
“EcoStay’s Motherland initiative promises to unite millions of travelers from around the globe,” says EcoStay President Christina deVries. Complete with a motorist rest stop, walking path, and educational signage the project will endow the Western provinces with a truly unique eco-destination. Orchestrated to visibly represent a major aboriginal symbol of regeneration, the planting will be modelled after a commissioned illustration by celebrated Canadian aboriginal artist Bill Helin. Plus, a guest engagement interactive website will offer lodgers a virtual tree planting and naming experience as they join others in leaving a legacy of nature and beauty for generations to come.
One way to prove to guests and meeting planners that a property is really green, is to have it confirmed by Canada’s certification body. The Green Key Eco-Rating Program and its sister program Green Key Meetings deliver comprehensive environmental audits that evaluate, inspect and certify hotels, resorts and meeting venues based on their commitment to sustainable green operations. “Green Key’s partnership with EcoStay promises to benefit members on several fronts including cost savings, increased bookings from conscious consumers and meeting planners and responsible corporate citizenry,” says Tony Pollard, Managing Director, Green Key Global.
