EU Supporting Tourism Sustainability through Certification

ECOTRANS, 01^st February 2021

European Tourism Going Green 2030 project for SMEs

The new European Tourism Going Green 2030 (ETGG 2030) project will bring direct support to European tourism SMEs who are looking to become more sustainable.   ETGG 2030 has been funded  almost 1 million Euros for 30 months from January 2021 by the EU COSME programme TOURCOOP to bring together sustainability experts,  higher education institutions, business support organisations, chambers of commerce, tourism organisations and NGOs to establish an ICT-based cluster approach for the development and transfer of innovative best practice in the sustainable management of small, medium & micro tourism enterprises (SMEs).

Covid-19 Resilience Strategies – Supporting Tourism SMEs and European Destinations

Before Covid-19 sustainability was all about climate change, social inequality and environmental degradation, with long term solutions and future-centred international goals. Now the pandemic has led us to focus immediately on human health and economic survival on a personal to global scale. Short term crisis management is one thing, but in the face of multiple crises we need to have a more considered response to long term stability whilst implementing the immediate support measures. Longer term goals must not be abandoned, but instead be reformulated to ensure the achievement of the circular green economy envisaged in the EU implementation of the UN’s 2030 Agenda.

The ETGG 2030 SME Support Services

The implementation of the European Tourism Going Green 2030 SME sustainability services will be piloted in an exemplary manner in 9 destinations in 6 countries with UNESCO cultural heritage sites and Natura 2000 sites as an immediate attempt to make the tourism eco-system and its territorial base more resilient in European areas that are most under threat. Expert knowledge support from the Erasmus-funded TRIANGLE (Tourism Research Innovation and Next Generation Learning Experience) Knowledge Alliance will be given to 6 business support organisations and chambers of commerce who will run national competitions to select 70 SMEs for sustainability support worth up to 10,000 Euros.  A common European SME sustainability online training system will be developed and implemented to give the businesses access to both an expert knowledge base and a European group of sustainability experts who will assist them through a third-party sustainability certification process.

From Research to Market Place – Creating market access for Certified SMEs.

By using the training system and new tools such as an ‘R U ready for Certification?’ App to achieve 3^rd party certification, the SMEs will be able to make evidence-based business decisions to implement sustainability in their operations and supply chains to improve their socio-economic and environmental performance, and simultaneously be measured in the process of becoming more sustainable.  This will allow them to raise their market profile by qualifying for a listing on the world's largest independent quality-assessed sustainable & responsible tourism market-place – the Green Travel Maps on the Tourism2030.eu Portal - where they can establish b2b, b2c and b2g links by being included in an upgraded Travel Green Europe App.

As European project partner ECOTRANS will further develop the Tourism2030.eu platform for destinations and SMEs for Going Green and for being credibly certified A main ambition of the EU COSME program TOURCOOP is to avoid re-inventing the wheel and to create synergies between funded projects. As part of ETGG2030 ECOTRANS will build a European Sustainable Tourism Cluster to support this. Interested co-ordinators or partners of such projects  are invited to contact the ETGG2030 project and to register on Tourism2030.eu to be kept informed.

For further information...

... please visit the ETGG2030 project web page or contact etgg2030@tourism2030.eu

Partners List

Eberswalde University for Sustainable Development – ZENAT, Germany (Lead)

ECOTRANS, Germany (Co-lead)

ÖHV Touristik Service, Austria

Croatian Chamber Of Economy, Croatia

Camera di Commercio Industria Artigianato e Agricoltura di Pordenone-Udine, Italy

ASSET Basilicata - Azienda Speciale della Camera di commercio della Basilicata, Italy

Asociatia Judeteana De Turism Sibiu, Romania

DMD NT, Bulgaria