Sustainable certifications: Value-add or red tape? Part 2

by Niël du Toit, CEO of Go Sustainable Tourism (GST)

Development of the GST management method over 20 years

IN THIS article we will discuss how sustainability is practically applied in the GST Business Management Method.

Gathering information

GST is a two-legged, confidential, relationship cooperation between Theory and Practice. It is like coach and athlete. Theory (coach) supplies knowledge via contracted academic stakeholders from their systematic studies focused on specific issues of sustainability to be integrated into broader systems of knowledge. Practice (athlete) supplies knowledge via the participating business owners and their broader, contextual knowledge of sustainability on the playing field, to be related to the focussed, theoretical topics.

The theoretical leg provides a set of management criteria in a questionnaire format. This refers to the ongoing contributions of able people to improve the management method and the verification audit. The practical leg of business owners provide their personal, indigenous knowledge in opening innovative means in search of improving the method for managing the sustainability of their business.

To accommodate diversity, each business owner is respected as a unique contributor to sustainability in their unique places, in unique geographical regions and operations within local communities.

Initial development of three elements of the Management Method

The first element of the GST Method is the purpose (goal). This element refers to sustainabilility as an unattainable goal but a purpose to strive for as lifelong learning of managing to do things right.

Purposefulness: This second element refers to doing the right things during the whole management exercise. In doing the right thing in a tourism stay business, we move towards management FOR sustainability as the purpose (goal) via the creative energy generated by the continuous application of the two opposites of economic development on the one hand and conservation of resources on the other.

In order to eventually do effective management to hit the target - purpose - a special mindset tool is necessary to keep your eye on the ball (purpose) all the time. Doing the right things (Afrikaans: doelgerig) is a prerequisite for doing things right (Afrikaans: doeltreffend).

Handling contrasts in human behaviour is normal. How do you know what is wrong if you do not know what is right? How do you know what is beautiful if you do not know what is ugly? How do you know you are happy if you do not know what sadness is? In a dialogue between the opposites one can arrive at a practical way of managing relevant ideas and situations.

In striving for the purpose of sustainability, it is necessary to handle two opposites in your mindset from the beginning and through all the stages of the whole management method. Seeing sustainability as an economic concept, then keeping up the dialogue between Development and Conservation will help you to stay focused on sustainability as the purpose. One can compare this with driving your car in the direction of your destination. Keeping your hands on the steering wheel - purpose - ensures driving to the destination.

How do you manage to arrive at your destination (goal)? A "dialogue" between slowing down and acceleration. You have to use both the accelerator and the brakes when necessary and to stay on track. You won't arrive at your destination when using only the one or the other. The better you use the dialogue between development and conservation the more effective you will be (doing things right).

Thirdly the structural element: Employing the philosophical discipline of phenomenology we can seek further elements of a measurable management objective. If the purpose is not measurable, then measurable objectives must be found as valid items to be measured.

According to phenomenology an iteration process of peeling back layers of meaning can be used to reduce a complicated concept without losing the essential content. This reduction process will result in two equitable aspects. Firstly it can produce the structural format of the concept and then secondly, the relevant aspects around each structural element to give the concept a functional - "to do" - use. One can try to understand the iteration of a complicated object by looking at the human body. If the human body is subjected to iteration then it will first of all reveal the structural side of the body - the skeleton. Add the functional elements like muscles, organs, etc to the skeleton, and then the body becomes useful.

At GST the iteration process as applied to the complex sustainability concept resulted in the 4C Structure. The four equitable elements of the 4C Structure can be described as follows:

• Conservation: ethical use of natural and cultural resources for tourism production

• Community: enhancing benefits for host communities at tourism destinations

• Customer: ethical consumption of authentic sense of place experiences

• Company: managing the long term financial sustainability of its tourism business

A simple drawing may help:

Having established the basic elements of purpose, purposefulness and structure of the GST Management Method, the next phase is my search for the functional elements to be used as management objectives in a questionnaire, which will be discussed in the third part of this series.