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Visit Scotland | Alba

Green certification

Tackling climate change is one of the biggest challenges facing Scottish tourism now. Consumer concern over the environment and climate has doubled in the last decade and visitors are increasingly seeking out businesses and destinations with excellent green credentials.

Gaining green certification provides a good opportunity to showcase your green credentials as well as managing your sustainability actions.

What is green certification?

A certification scheme provides a third-party assessment of your businesses environmental and sustainable practices.

Generally, an assessor will measure your business against the scheme criteria, which can cover a range of sustainability aspects. By meeting those criteria, you gain the certification’s label, which can then be used as an independently verified badge of validation for your business.

Renewed regularly to ensure you are maintaining your sustainability activities, it formalises your current environmental work in a visible and verifiable way to your staff, customers, suppliers and community.

Why join a certification scheme?

Sustainability certification schemes have a range of benefits. Taking part in a scheme is a great way of reviewing your environmental, social, and economic impact and facilitating action to maximise the positive benefits to your business and wider community and environment.

The independent verification of the actions you take, can provide a robust and credible certification to help promote your sustainability commitment to potential customers, benefitting your business as well as developing a more sustainable destination. 

Benefits of joining a scheme

  • Proves your commitment

    It helps to demonstrate your commitment to the environment and community by increasing sustainable business practices

  • Reduce carbon footprint

    It’s a great way of reducing not just your carbon footprint, but also energy, water and waste bills too

  • Monitor and improve

    Certification provides your business with a useful management framework to monitor and help improve your sustainable practices

  • Raise awareness

    It can help raise awareness and facilitate behavioural change of guests, staff, and suppliers

  • Marketing advantage

    You could achieve marketing advantage over your competitors by meeting increased demand for sustainable businesses 

  • Supporting your visitors

    You also make it easier for visitors to make environmentally conscious travel decisions

Available programmes

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