UAE hotels and golf courses looking for the last word in green practices and aiming to promote environment-conscious tourism could soon have Farnek Avireal’s Green Globe Certification (GGC) stamp on their marketing material – provided they can meet its 248 exacting standards first.

Farnek Avireal has signed an exclusive five-year licensing agreement with Green Globe International to utilise the Green Globe brand, the only recognised certification label in the tourism and hospitality industry covering tourism properties within 20 different countries throughout the Middle East.
More than 800 businesses in 50 countries have so far received the paperless web-based GGC, which is the only one globally in compliance with ISO17021.
The GGC is the premier worldwide sustainability certification for tourism businesses and the Green Globe Index tool allows clients to calculate their CO2 emissions and its financial impact and enables them to track their performance of energy and water consumption as well as non-recyclable waste production.
“The need for credible, independent certification is particularly acute in the hotel industry, where more than two-thirds of travellers have serious doubts about green initiatives posted on company websites,” said Marcus Oberlin, general manager, Farnek Avireal Middle East.
Consumer interest in sustainability issues is gathering momentum, however, and nearly half of all travellers polled by Travel Weekly said they would be prepared to pay up to 10 per cent more to stay in a Green-certified hotel.
With sustainability in mind, the Dubai Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing is preparing to implement its compulsory carbon reduction initiative this year, which aims to see Dubai hotels reduce their carbon footprint by 20 per cent by the end of 2011.
Consultancy from Farnek Avireal and certification from Green Globe would help hotels to monitor and reduce their carbon emissions.