What does our Gold Green Tourism Award mean?
What achieving our Gold Green Tourism Award means
We are supported in our sustainability practices, and in our improvement journey by the world-leading sustainability accreditation partner, Green Tourism. Achieving the Gold Green Tourism award means that our sustainability practices have been assessed and verified by a credible partner. It shows that we have an ongoing commitment to:
- sustainability standards and practices
- work responsibly, ethically, and sustainably
- contribute to our community
- reduce our impact on the environment, and
- be accessible and inclusive to all visitors and staff.
Sustainability Criteria
Green Tourism has assessed our business against 15 sustainability criteria grouped under the pillars of People, Places and Planet. These consider the social, economic, and environmental actions we undertake, providing a holistic assessment of our sustainability performance.
Our Highlights
- Health & Wellbeing – An excellent performance in all areas of protecting and supporting staff and customer health and wellbeing.
- Community – A very strong commitment to supporting vibrant local communities.
- Travel – Strong Commitment to promoting and facilitating sustainable travel options for visitors and for the business.
- Food & Drink – Riverside B&B and Wray Valley camping, has shown fantastic commitment to promoting locally and sustainably and ethically, produced food.
- Equality, Diversity, & Inclusivity – Excellent commitment to ensuring the B&B and Campsite is welcoming and accessible to all.
What do the Green Tourism gradings mean?
Green Tourism provides an overall grading of Gold, Silver, or Bronze depending on the overall score achieved across the comprehensive criteria.
Bronze
Typically, an entry-level business, who are in the early stages of its green journey but has shown great commitment to making its business work more sustainably and is currently implementing a range of measures related to the 15 goals across all three pillars of People, Places and Planet.
Silver
Typically, a business that falls under this category can demonstrate good practice across our three pillars of People, Places and Planet, but has an action plan of best practice improvements that will enhance the sustainability practices within the business.
Gold
A business that achieves the highest standards of sustainability has a strong and broad environmental ethos and can provide excellent examples of best practice throughout the majority of the three pillars of People, Places and Planet. It has made significant changes to its working practices continues to review and maintain them.
Of those businesses in the tourism and hospitality industry that put themselves forward for Green Tourism’s third-party verification, around one-third achieve bronze, one-third silver, and one-third gold. Our grading at the first assessment in Jan 2023 was Gold.
Our next assessment
Our next assessment will take place in January 2024 when we aim to improve our score overall particularly focussing on the Carbon and Chemicals goals.