Adopt the GSTC Criteria
Establishing the GSTC Criteria
In 2008, the Partnership for Global Sustainable Tourism Criteria (GSTC Partnership) - a coalition of more than 50 organizations working together to foster increased understanding of sustainable tourism practices and the adoption of universal sustainable tourism principles - developed a set of baseline criteria organized around the four pillars of sustainable tourism: effective sustainability planning; maximizing social and economic benefits to the local community; reduction of negative impacts to cultural heritage; and reduction of negative impacts on the environment.
The Rainforest Alliance, United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), United Nations Foundation and the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) initiated the Partnership in an effort to come to a common understanding of sustainable tourism.
The Global Sustainable Tourism Criteria are the minimum requirements that any tourism business should aspire to reach in order to protect and sustain the world’s natural and cultural resources while ensuring tourism meets its potential as a tool for poverty alleviation.
To develop these criteria, the GSTC Partnership consulted with sustainability experts and the tourism industry and reviewed more than 60 existing certification and voluntary sets of criteria already being implemented around the globe. In all, more than 4,500 criteria were analyzed and the resulting draft criteria received comments from over 2000 stakeholders. Since the launch of the criteria in October 2008, the GSTC has focused on engaging all tourism stakeholders – from purchasers to suppliers to consumers – to adopt the criteria.
Click here to read the full report on the criteria consultation process.
