The opportunity of the SDGs: Sustainable tourism, matching policy to practicalities through the 4Cs

Billions of people suffer poverty, deprivation and inequality around the world causing major crises of peace, security and environmental degradation. Water, sanitation, education and health services are insufficiently available. Unsustainable production, consumption and over-development come at the expense of the natural environment. A climate change crisis is upon us and the health of our planet and personal wellbeing under huge stress.

At the UN Sustainable Development Summit September 2015, a record of 154 heads of state or government formally adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development with the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that aim to end extreme poverty, fight inequality and injustice, and tackle climate change. The December COP21 climate summit in Paris will equally see much intergovernmental discussion, potentially abstractedly removed from the reality of what’s happening on the ground.

As attention shifts to how the SDGs can be delivered, the realisation comes that the challenges are too great and systematic for governments and NGOs alone, and the recognition that business’ contribution is not only needed but pivotal for taking action at meaningful scale. While goal 8 and 12 specifically address tourism, there has been much talk of how tourism encompasses all the SDGs, and how the 1 billion tourists’ actions offer 1 billion opportunities to make 1 big impact (UNWTO). But questions still remain on how to deliver these global policies with on-the-ground actors and actions, improving global sustainability whilst the industry is targeted to growing tourism in volume?

Matching policy to practicalities, sustainable tourism doesn’t just offer an opportunity to implement, transform, communicate and realise the SDGs, but the SDGs offer sustainable tourism an opportunity. One challenge is the fragmentation of the industry with its global small scale enterprises, and how to link them through coordinated action to deliver common goals, to mainstream and deliver the SDGs.

One solution became apparent at The Long Run’s annual members meeting.

The workshop convened in Costa Rica brought together stakeholders including the Vice President and acting Head of State, the tourism ministry, industry players and nature-based tourism entrepreneurs, along with the international network’s founder and businessman Jochen Zeitz. Zeitz, as previous CEO of Puma and now Sustainability Director of Kering brought environmental profit and loss reporting to both, owns Segera Retreat in Kenya, is a director of Wilderness Safaris, co-founder of The B Team with Richard Branson and is soon to open the Museum of Contemporary African Art (MOCAA) in Cape Town.

As respected in the business and tourism worlds as sustainability and culture, it’s easy to see how his interests led to his philosophy and framework of sustainability called the "4Cs": a holistic balance of Conservation, Community, Culture and Commerce, upon which The Long Run’s work is based.

The Long Run is the independent not-for profit member organisation of global nature-based tourism businesses he founded and chairs, a platform to network, share knowledge and best practice, supporting each member’s unique journey of continuous improvement in sustainability, focused around the 4Cs and embodied in the Global Ecosphere Retreats® (GER) Standard that fuels continued excellence. In this, ‘the whole is greater than the sum of its parts’ for The Long Run.

The growing human population is putting the remaining natural areas of the world under enormous pressure and the only realistic option to save these areas for posterity is to sustainably use them for generating economic benefits that would ward off their destruction through irresponsible and exploitative uses: The Long Run seeks to break the vicious circle of human deprivation and environmental degradation by leveraging the power of enterprise.

Members demonstrate sustainable business practices and related innovations in commercially viable operations providing jobs and driving local economies, and here is witnessed sustainable development through tourism at work in staggering numbers: Last year, together, the members invested more than USD 5 million in community development, supporting half a million people from 54 cultures and 2700 jobs in 58 towns and villages. In nature, upon which so much of tourism depends, 5 million acres were directly supported for biodiversity conservation in total, in addition to 7.6 million indirectly, providing habitat for 18,000 species aggregated, 680 of those endangered.

Video interviews with select members of The Long Run at their annual meeting are available to view here:

Brazil: Caiman Ecological Reserve

Chile: Huilo Huilo Biological Reserve

Costa Rica: Lapa Rios Ecolodge; Pacuare Lodge

Italy: Tenuta di Spannocchia

Kenya: Segera Retreat; Cottars 1920s Camp

New Zealand: Tahi Beach

South Africa: Grootbos Private Nature Reserve and Foundation

Tanzania: Chumbe Island Coral Park, Zanzibar

The Long Run, as a global movement of committed people supporting human wellbeing through responsible nature-based tourism on a healthy planet, aims to harness its members’ success and influence for the collective good of society, making it the world’s truly largest business-led initiative for the wellbeing of people and planet at a meaningful scale.

The Long Run will be present at the Word Travel Market London and is available to meet 5^th November.

About The Long Run

The Long Run was set up originally as an initiative of The Zeitz Foundation with the mission to create and support sustainable, ecologically and socially responsible projects and destinations around the world to achieve long-lasting impact and sustainability in privately managed areas. Its Global Ecosphere Retreats® (GER) Standard that has been called "the world’s best standards for privately protected areas" (Dr. Jeff A. Langholz).

Members of The Long Run are nature-based businesses who own, manage or significantly influence land or seascapes of biodiversity value. Supporter organisations are those who support The Long Run in its cause, committed to the 4Cs philosophy of Conservation, Community, Culture and Commerce.

More about The Long Run efforts, its members’ case studies and impacts can be viewed on www.thelongrun.com.

For further information, contact:

Victoria Smith

Market, Brand & Communications

The Long Run

info@ thelongrun .com [no spaces]

www.thelongrun.com