The United Nations has clout.

It's the trusted global intergovernmental organization with a mandate for peace, human rights, social progress and humanitarian aid.

So, when it came time for Kelowna-based GreenStep offer a new sustainability certification for hotels and tourism businesses, it chose to partner with the Global Sustainable Tourism Council, the worldwide sustainable tourism standard developed in collaboration with the United Nations.

"It's important to work with internationally recognized bodies," said GreenStep CEO Angela Nagy.

"We developed our criteria with GSTC (Global Sustainable Tourism Council) to create the GSTC Certification through the GreenStep Sustainable Tourism Standard."

GreenStep is also an affiliate member of UN Tourism.

GreenStep expects to help a lot of hotels, tour operators and other tourism businesses achieve the new certification — not only across Canada but also in the US and Europe.

"GreenStep is the only North America-based company delivering the GSTC right now," explained Nagy.

"It means we can do certifications globally, and we will, but we will also focus on Canada."

Photo credit: Prestige Hotels & ResortsThe Prestige Beach House Hotel in Kelowna has GreenStep's previous Pathways sustainable certification, not the new Global Sustainable Tourism Council certification. Beach House is listed on Booking.com with the GreenStep Sustainable Tourism certification.

Photo credit: Booking.comThe Sandman Signature Hotel on Vancouver's West Georgia Street has GreenStep's previous Pathways sustainable certification, not the new Global Sustainable Tourism Council certification. The Sandman is listed on Booking.com with the GreenStep Sustainable Tourism certification.

Certification is not only good for the environment because it proves businesses are being as green as possible, and it is also increasingly meeting customer demand.

For instance, surveys show 85% of global travellers say sustainable travel matters to them.

Booking.com — the largest hotel and accommodation booking site in the world — saw 100 million room nights booked in 2025 at hotels with third-party sustainability certifications.

"Some consumers are using sustainability as a filter when booking a hotel and will only book a room that has certification," said Nagy.

"Other consumers may not specifically search for a green hotel, but they expect all hotels meet some sort of sustainability. Corporate buyers are particularly looking for certification."

With other sectors, sustainability may very well be built into the business so travellers don't have to go looking.

For instance, major cruise lines Royal Caribbean and MSC now require or prefer that excursion tour operators have GSTC certification.

And, American Express Global Business Travel and corporate travel giant BCD are actively moving toward only working with hotels and partners that have GSTC certification.

The third-party designation for a certification is important because it means the hotel can't simply declare itself sustainable.

It went through a vetting process and a third party verified it.

For the GreenStep GSTC certification process, Germany-based RoyalCert is called upon to do the final third-party audit.

"Partnering with GreenStep reflects our shared commitment to raising the bar for what sustainability certification means in the tourism industry," said RoyalCert CEO Christos Markopoulos.

"RoyalCert is proud to support this new program for North American tourism businesses seeking credible, internationally recognized certification."

The GSTC certification process asks dozens of questions in each of four areas — management, socio-economic impacts, cultural impacts and community impacts — to determine whether the tourism business receives certification.

Since 2020, GreenStep has helped hundreds of tourism businesses across Canada get certification under GreenStep Sustainable Tourism Pathways.

Those businesses maintain that certification.

However, if they want earn the updated Global Sustainable Tourism Council certification through the GreenStep Sustainable Tourism Standard they would have to do a new application.