Comparing the ICT's Certification of Sustainable Tourism and The New Key to Costa Rica's Sustainable Tourism Rating
by Beatrice Blake

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CST: Another Form of Greenwashing?

"This program directly attacks the practices of some businesses which operate as 'greenwashers' (businesses which abuse the concept of 'eco' or 'sustainable') because it will offer reliable information about which businesses really make an effort to offer a sustainable tourism product and which don't.

"Without a doubt, this reinforces the image of the country as an authentic 'naturalist' destination, considerably augmenting our national tourism product's ability to compete."

Let me say at the outset that the CST does a good job classifying tourism businesses, as it says on its webpage, "based on the degree to which they comply with a sustainable model of natural, cultural and social resource management". But to jump from there to the CST making Costa Rica an "authentic naturalist destination" is a mistake.

Costa Rica is an authentic naturalist destination because its government has acted in the past to preserve the incredible scenic, biological and geographical diversity of its National System of Conservation Areas (SINAC), and because of the many responsible tourism businesses that have aided in the preservation of those areas. The struggle is to define which businesses are helping to preserve and protect that beauty and diversity, distinguishing them from businesses that threaten to "kill the goose that laid the golden egg".

Part of the problem stems from the confusion of the terms "sustainable tourism" and "ecotourism". While I hate to quibble about words, here these definitions are at the crux of the matter.

I agree The Nature Conservancy's Katrina Brandon when she defined ecotourism as:

1. a source of financing for parks and conservation
2. economic justification for park protection
3. economic alternatives for local people to reduce exploitation of conservation areas and resources
4. constituency building which promotes conservation; and
5. an impetus for private conservation efforts (Ecotourism and Conservation: a Review of Key Issues, April 1996)

Well, how do you protect the rights of future generations to satisfy their needs? By protecting nature. How do you protect nature through tourism? See Katrina's definition of ecotourism, above. Lizano's definition of sustainability doesn't mean much.

According to the variables measured by the CST, "sustainable tourism" means that the business uses biodegradable cleaning products, takes care of its wastewater and solid wastes, recycles, avoids pesticide use, etc. It can be a 234-room hotel on a major highway or a 10-room jungle lodge -- it doesn't matter whether it is actively involved in conservation. True, hotels can gain points by having their own nature reserves, but they can get on the list with very little commitment to conservation.

As I have observed Costa Rica over the last 30 years, I see an incredible increase in conservation consciousness. I think that this is due not only to environmental education, but also to the fact that Costa Ricans have seen that they can find ways to make their love of nature economically viable, instead of having to ignore or destroy it to make a living. Sixty percent of their privately owned nature reserves and wildlife refuges participate in some kind of ecotourism (Privately-Owned Nature Reserves in Costa Rica, Jeff Langholz, Cornell University, 1998).

Most of the 68 businesses listed on The New Key Sustainable Tourism Rating (New Key to Costa Rica) have private reserves. To ignore or minimize the phenomenon of private reserves in Costa Rica is to ignore a movement that has been responsible for the protection of a lot of land, and for acting against other environmental threats like poaching and logging. It is to ignore an important lesson that Costa Rica can teach the world.

The CST only gives minimal attention to this phenomenon, adding to the lack of encouragement most small businesses feel from the Tourism Institute (see below). In the New Key survey, having a private reserve or being closely aligned with a government reserve was a prerequisite for being rated. We were trying to guide tourists to these businesses so that the tourism dollars they spent would really be going toward the protection of nature rather than its destruction.

Costa Rica was known as a naturalist destination long before the CST. It gained that reputation because of responsible tourism projects like Rara Avis, La Selva, Monteverde, and the amazing National Park System. Other businesses jumped on the "eco" bandwagon, taking advantage of Costa Rica's reputation to attract the well-heeled ecotourists of the 1980s and 90s. All of the projects which made Costa Rica famous as an ecotourism destination were based on the protection of nature. Unless the CST states clearly that its survey has nothing to do with ecotourism, it is aiding and abetting the greenwashing of two 300-room mega-hotels which appear on the CST list next to places like Rara Avis.

When we conceived of the Key to Costa Rica Sustainable Tourism Rating in 1990, it was to avoid exactly the above dilemma -- megaprojects or irresponsible smaller projects cashing in on the "eco" image. I commend the CST for trying to encourage sustainable practices in the tourism industry as a whole, but that should not be confused with ecotourism.

Some argue that if ecotourism is certified separately from regular tourism, the ecotourism lodges will be held to a much higher standard than regular businesses, which will put them at an economic disadvantage. That is probably true, but ecotourism businesses must be held to high standards in order not to endanger the environment from which they make a living.

Yes or No?

What materials were used during construction? Where were they obtained? If endangered species were used, were they replenished in any way?

The all-powerful Costa Rican lumber industry creates complicated laws with legal loopholes that allow it to plunder any forest that is not protected by public or private reserves. The ICT, promoter of Costa Rica's natural wonders, never weighs in on this issue. Could it be that political interests prevent them from including questions about endangered wood species in their survey?

What are the accomplishments of private or community projects in which you participate? How do you help conserve protected areas that are not your own property? If you own a private reserve, what percent of it is in primary forest, secondary forest, or areas of regeneration?

The New Key Survey questions were in terms of actual accomplishments. The corresponding CST questions ask only if the business "participates continuously in environmental improvement programs" and "is part of organizations which are actively working on environmental and social problems". Having a written plan in place seems to be more important than actual practices. In a country like Costa Rica, having a written plan can mean nothing.

If you have your own reserve, how is it managed? How do you avoid erosion on trails?

What type of garbage disposal methods do you use? How is graywater treated? How is sewage treated?

The New Key survey questions required knowledge and experience and took appropriate technology and creative solutions into account. The CST questions require set answers and are actually unfair to small alternative businesses (see Amos Bien's comments below).

Do you have to let personnel go during the low season? How many?

Who are the owners? Where do they live? Where are they from originally?

The CST asks whether employees are from the local community, whether administrative employees are Costa Rican and whether employees are given training, but it doesn't ask questions more relevant to the tourism industry, like what happens during the low season. They also avoid the question of capital flight by not asking the owner's nationality and current address.

The New Key would also interview local community leaders and park personnel to verify the claims of the hotels themselves. That was an interesting and revealing process that should be included in the CST.

Lumping Them All Together

On both lists, a hotel that has answered "no" to 60 to 80% of the questions on the survey (Level 1) will be listed right next to a hotel that has Level 3 or 4. The important thing is that the hotels all appear certified, i.e., given a stamp of approval, by the CST. Thus, in the category of beach hotels, Level 1 hotels like Blue Bay Village Papagayo, Sol Playa Hermosa (both huge industrial hotel complexes), and Amapola (owned by the environmentally abusive Spanish hotel chain, Barcelo) are listed alongside the Level 3 Si Como No, a 38-room hotel which recycles graywater, uses low-voltage lighting, has a solar-heated Jacuzzi, a self-cleaning pool, and operates a private reserve which protects the watershed for the Manuel Antonio area.

Where is the incentive to improve from Level 1 when you are listed next to a truly green hotel without doing anything? Where is the encouragement and appreciation for Level 3 and 4 hotels when they are listed next to hotels that have answered "yes" to only 20 to 39% of the survey questions?

Hotels should answer yes to at least half the questions before being eligible for certification, and the rating level should be included every time that hotel is mentioned.

One more point: the CST webpage is not readily accessible from the ICT webpage. I spent several minutes looking for links to it on the ICT pages, and could not find it. Apparently there is a stalemate which has prevented effective promotion of CST: No new businesses are being certified until the accreditation and certification structures are firmly in place and until an improved version is released. The ICT has been threatened that it will be sued if it starts promoting CST for the currently certified hotels unless the possibility of joining the program is available to all hotels. Hence the stalemate. The program will certainly have more clout, and will live up to its promise of giving incentives when it is showcased on the ICT website.

Small is Beautiful

There are 68 lodges on the New Key list. Of these, only seven appear on the ICT list. Why such a huge discrepancy? To find out I asked for comments from 18 lodges on the New Key list. I asked them if they were familiar with the CST and if they had reasons for applying or not applying for it. I also asked them to describe the impact (if any) of the New Key list on their businesses.

I received answers back from ten of these businesses. One had changed hands; one reply was irrelevant, not really answering the questions I asked, but making general statements about their hotel's "green" practices; two were in the process of applying for the CST; and five stated that they were not applying. Their reasons can be summarized in the following quotes from two businesses in very different parts of the country:

"The fact is, we've had very frustrating experiences in our contacts with the ICT. We had to go through a big bureaucratic procedure to get classified as a "microempresa turistica" (following the ICT's suggestion), but this classification has done absolutely nothing to further our small business. The ICT doesn't think small businesses like ours benefit the country. And sincerely, we have felt that the New Key and other guidebooks have given us more support and had more impact on the life of our business than the ICT. For these reasons, we are reluctant to participate in this type of government initiative, which can change with the administration in power...that is to say, contrary to its name, the CST is not sustainable."

"We have heard nothing about CST. I do remember that anything related to ICT means enormous expenditures of energy, filling out countless papers, forms, studies, certifications etc.. We can't take that much time off work and projects, to do all that, and in the end we are too small for them to bother with anyway.

This shows that, in order to gain popular support, the certifying agency should be one which is well-regarded by the tourism industry, large and small projects alike. It also indicates that the process should be made as un-bureaucratic as possible. Perhaps that means that it should not be run by a government agency.

Although I wrote to several businesses that appeared on both the New Key and the ICT lists, the only one I received an answer from was Rara Avis. Its owner, Amos Bien added some excellent comments about the way the survey itself was weighted toward larger businesses. Amos writes:

"I fully support CST and would like to see it implemented worldwide. However, several serious changes must be made to it for it to be really effective:

1. It doesn't work well for small and microbusinesses because of the ISO-like requirements for written registers for just about everything. This can be gotten around, but the instrument must be slightly modified to do so.

2. It doesn't base its criteria for energy and water conservation on absolute consumption (liters per guest per night; KWH per guest per night), which would level the playing field for hotels large, medium, and small, but rather on conservation devices which would allow a big hotel with huge water consumption for swimming pools and golf courses to score better than a hotel with extremely low consumption, but without fancy devices to do so. It stacks the deck in favor of big consumers.

3. There is a statistical artifact in the design of "not applicable" questions, which gives additional weight to nonconformities by smaller hotels. Instead of excluding the questions, hotels with N/A for swimming pools and golf courses should receive maximum scores.

4. It does not take into account historical and archeological sites, living cultures, and habitats not found in Costa Rica (tundra, deserts, coral reefs, etc.)"

Does it really matter?

"A few people have been through saying that they saw that we got a certification from your book and that that was why they chose our place over other places. That made me feel really good. But it seems like those people are kind of few and far between. But it seems that as long as you aren't on the "bad" environmental places, that it is all the same to 95% of the tourists."

One way I have seen that it really matters is in the case of small, locally-owned businesses that do not have access to advertising on the internet. The owners of these businesses have let me know how important being included on the New Key survey has been to their livelihood. Aggressive, consistent internet presence could be a big incentive for getting these very deserving businesses to participate in the CST.

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