Sustainability is normally evaluated by experts from third-party certifications and brands. Assessing sustainability is considered too complicated for ordinary people.

However, we believe that this is too important, too complicated and that the world is changing too fast for only "experts" to be able to assess sustainability and responsibility. We need a system that makes it easy for everyone to jump on board.

What happens if we facilitate so that guests, employees and partners all can get involved and evaluate?

In order to get a dynamic, comprehensive and effective assessment, we need the eyes and ears of ordinary people, and not least ordinary people's smartphones, networks and recommendations. Can our platform contribute to creating a movement? It's about making it simple, engaging and specific, with openness and honesty as a starting point.

You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn how to surf. People will continue to travel, let’s make them a force for good.

Imagine if we could use the millions of travelers to observe and document climate change, the destruction of nature and violations of human rights. Tourism already contributes to a more open world, so why not put it into a system? In a platform owned by many locals, instead of a few powerful companies.

Although there is not only one answer to sustainability, there are many good approaches to standardizing sustainable tourism. There are hundreds of certifications and branding programmes, some of which are industry-specific, many of which are more general.

Nevertheless, only around 7% of companies are environmentally certified. So these certifications have not been an indisputable success so far. Neither tourism companies nor travelers know the programmes well enough. There are probably several reasons for this, one could be the expensive and lengthy approval processes that small businesses may not have the resources to go through.

Most of those who have received environmental certifications got it from programmes that are not industry-specific to tourism, or that focus on internal company indicators such as electricity consumption in the office or use of paper. Things that say very little about a tourism company's actual impact. A certification is granted if your company meets given criteria that are suitable for some, and completely irrelevant for others.

This results in hotel chains or shipping companies appearing to be more sustainable than a small guiding company or a tourist cabin with low impact. It is problematic that certifications and other programmes are designed with criteria that will reward small actions such as removing plastic straws, rather than a genuine and holistic philosophy.

Criterias which may not even be relevant for small companies and that will give them a lower score, as they may not even consume the products that the big ones are reducing.

This means the travel industry has a major lack of both credible documentation and communication.

Most, as much as 80% of travelers say they are unable to identify sustainable choices when traveling.

If the travelers, for lack of anything better, end up using certification programmes as the basis for their choices, we have not really come much closer to the goals, because the winners will be big companies with money and resources to do the certification process.

Another issue is that the vast majority of emissions are associated with traveling to the destination, and no known certification programme takes this into account.

Another questionable side to the certification programmes, is how many of them that are emphasizing compensation (offsetting). When there is more and more empirical evidence that climate quotas contribute to increased emissions, not the other way around.

We are in every way supporters of third-party certifications of the travel industry. For example, the application and approval process often has great value, as it can help create change in a company's culture and give the company good tools for improvement.

The process actually has greater value than the certificate itself, which unfortunately says little about what is done after you have received it. A driving license does not say anything about whether you are a good driver or not.

So , we believe there is a need for a supplementary system based on honesty and transparency.

There is no doubt that the Transparency concept is inspired by services that offer crowd-sourced reviews, and we will make it a central part of our platform. Those mentioned, and others that exist today, unfortunately do not have a particular focus on responsibility and sustainability. It is also worth mentioning that there are many booking platforms that allow users to give reviews. And we are also inspired by Glassdoor, Equality Check and similar sites that allow users to give anonymous reviews. It can give deep insight into company culture.

Unfortunately, it is a well-known fact that you pay for placements on platforms and that fake reviews have become a huge problem, and it is growing strongly with the rise of artificial intelligence. This week, for example, news broke that the highest-rated restaurant in Montreal doesn't even exist.

Many platforms now have filtering for sustainability. Own arrangements or more well-known ones. How is this assessed? Large players such as hotel chains, shipping companies and charter operators often score higher on sustainability than local companies with a small footprint.

Something is not right.

We have mentioned how the biggest players finance sustainability initiatives and certifications. It is good thing that they are giving back, but this is still problematic.

Without major players, we would hardly have had very many tourism media either. They cannot live off small local players. They write more often about those who pay well, those who will pay for their travel and accommodation. Many media claim to always say no to free/discounted accommodation and services, but do they really pay to send journalists and photographers on long trips with starting prices from NOK 15,000 per night per person? Wow, not bad. How many viewing tours have you been on? They most often write about those who pay them, cover their travel costs and accommodation.

Unfortunately, journalists and bloggers tend to write about those who have been written about before. Of course, there are plenty of exceptions to this rule and "everyone" wants to present something new. But if you look in depth at the media coverage, there is a lot of recycling of material. Almost all lists à la "The ten most sustainable hotels in the world" more often cover players that are not particularly sustainable. If you appear on one list, you will appear on many more.

Why should greenwashing be rewarded, while those who do their best disappear in the crowd? What if the fake ones are exposed, and those doing their best are finally rewarded? This will help minimize the leakage.

The Bell or Gauss’ curve is a well-known phenomenon in scientific circles. A random group, (or crowd) gives better results than any elite institution. Research tends to focus on a narrow and specific field, while a crowd gives us insight into the entire span. That's why people trust Tripadvisor more than travel journalists, bloggers or what you tell yourself.

Sustainability is normally only evaluated by third-party certifications and labels. It is often seen as too complicated for ordinary people to be able to assess. However, we believe that the world is too big and changes too quickly for sustainability to be assessed only by "experts".

What happens if we guide and make it possible for guests, employees and partners to evaluate?

It is not realistic that everyone should know everything, but everybody can report on what they actually see? If we give a guest or employee the right framework, then they can contribute regardless of whether they are an expert or not.

This way arrangements will be made to collect large amounts of data that will be put into a system and made available to everyone. A large joint effort that gives insight into how customers experience what they see. It can also help them understand what conscious customers are looking for, and how they can improve.

When people pay attention, it becomes almost impossible to greenwash, and anonymous reviews will make it easier to uncover bad working conditions and poor treatment of partners and suppliers. Or perhaps uncover things that happen in processes where developers make secret agreements with local representatives on the destruction of nature that affects everyone.

7 out of 10 travelers would like to assess sustainability if they were given clear guidance on how.

7 out of 10 travelers prefer recommendations from other travelers.

6 out of 10 travelers say they want to make more sustainable choices when they travel.

6 out of 10 say they would like to pay more for it.

8 out of 10 share photos and stories from their journey.