Costa Rica Sustainbility

CST Information

The "Elite level" designation in the Certification for Sustainability Tourism typically represents the highest standard achievable within the certification program, recognizing exemplary sustainable practices in the tourism industry. 

Attaining elite status signifies that business or organizations has not only met but often exceeded stringent criteria across key areas: environmental stewardship, social responsibility, economic sustainability, and cultural preservation.

Key elements evaluated for elite level certification:

• Business Management: Comprehensive governance, compliance with regulations, and sustainable operational practices.
• Environmental Practices: Implementation of advanced measures such as energy efficiency, water conservation, waste management, and protection of natural ecosystems.
• Social Economic Responsibility and Cultural Preservation: Commitment to fair labor, community involvement, cultural sensitivity, local economic support, and safeguarding cultural heritage.

Achieving elite status typically necessitates ongoing improvement, proactive sustainability initiatives, and integration of sustainable management systems within the local community. The CTV-CST oversees the evaluation and approval process for organizations and companies completing the certification.

Levels of Certification:

• Basic Level: Full compliance with mandatory indicators.
• Elite Level: Achievement of 30% of Improvement and Continuity indicators, and 70% External Impact indicators.

This designation underscores a commitment to sustainable tourism practices, ensuring long-term viability while preserving natural and cultural resources.

Hotel Los Lagos Spa & Resort

SUSTAINABILITY POLICIES

Biological Physical Environment

As part of the environmental commitment, the hotel gets involved with different organizations in the town or country, with the aim of working on solutions to environmental and social problems.

Service plant

The hotel promotes and raises awareness among customers in general, to save on the use of water and electricity, with the implementation of programs and campaigns for savings.

Cleaning and cosmetics

Room and bathroom cleaning products, laundry products, and cosmetic products, for use by our clients, are biodegradable, non-corrosive, and non-toxic, and must come in recyclable and reusable packaging.

In all our rooms, reusable packaging is used for products for personal use, and in public use areas (bathrooms) there are dispensers.

80% of the hotel's electricity is produced by solar panels Arenal Kioro Suites & Spa 

At Arenal Kioro we know the importance of maintaining a sustainable balance where the environment and society are as important as the company's economy.

For this reason, we strive to take care of the environment from which we obtain natural goods and the society where we develop, with activities such as:

• A bioclimatic design of the hotel facilities, which seeks to make the most of natural lighting and ventilation.
• Controls consumption of water, fossil fuel and electricity, as well as how to encourage the reduction of consumption of these resources.
• The use of technologies such as solar panels to harness solar energy.
• A consolidated solid waste management program that has allowed us to reduce, reuse, separate, treat and dispose of this solid waste correctly, until it is delivered to authorized managers.
• We are aware of the carbon footprint that our operation generates, therefore we work on mitigation and compensation programs that aim to reduce emissions and compensate with other activities for the emissions that we cannot reduce, with activities such as:
• A nursery that supplies internal and some community reforestation activities.
• We support the One Million Trees program, La Fortuna, by volunteering the work done in the nursery of this Association and participating in reforestations carried out in the recovery of a gallery forest, adjacent to an urbanization in the center of the community.
• We actively participate in community activities to clean solid waste in rivers and roads, which favors the beautification of the place and a healthier environment, which has been reflected in the reduction of disease vectors such as dengue and which favors the program. BAE of the Community.
• We are part of the Alliance for Sustainability, a group of companies and institutions that work to generate a positive environmental and social impact in our immediate communities and thus achieve more significant results. Part of the activities carried out have been environmental education fairs in schools, strengthening of the Maleku culture with activities for Aboriginal Day, environmental education training for the community, reforestation in the community, support for local entrepreneurs and strengthening the route electricity from La Fortuna.
• In addition, we provide training in Costa Rican dances in a rural school, for the promotion and cultural roots of these students with our Costa Rican culture.

Costa Rica, a country of 51,000 km² of land and 550,000 km² of territorial sea, has reversed its deforestation process. We protect 6.5% of the world's recorded biodiversity, and our forestry and our other uses of land are a carbon sink.

As part of an alliance between the Costa Rican Tourism Board (ICT), and the National Forestry Financing Fund (Fonafifo), both public institutions committed to the process of decarbonisation and socio-environmental sustainability, we offer a simple and secure platform to measure the carbon footprint of your travel, and purchase offsets for greenhouse gas emissions. Whether you fly, drive, take the bus, our application provides the opportunity to know, and neutralise, the emissions of all your journeys.

STEP 1:           

Select your language. Enter your details. You can combine several routes, also land and air travel.

Spanish: https://www.fonafifo.go.cr/es/Calculadora

English: https://www.fonafifo.go.cr/es/Calculadora

STEP 2:

Click on the calculation of total tons issued.

STEP 3:           

Buy securely online ^(1). We have security certificate and protection for the use of cards. You receive a Certificate of Purchase. To prevent being charged twice, purchase information is reported annually to the Climate Change Directorate, responsible for the GHG inventory, which we submit to the Climate Change Convention.

(1) Carbon credits are generated in Fonafifo projects that use forest plantations registered in the Payment for Environmental Services Programme. In Costa Rica, carbon ownership is defined. When private farms enter the Programme, they sign a contract and transfer the carbon rights to Fonafifo, which uses the CDM methodologies of the Climate Change Convention as a reference to calculate the carbon removed in local projects. The projects are accepted by the Country Programme for C-Neutrality, and they are measurable, verifiable and reportable. Each project has its own profile and biomass measurements.

Beyond offsetting, adaptation and sustainable development

Costa Rica has a Payment for Environmental Services Programme that has received international recognition. PES is a financial mechanism that contributes to the conservation and recovery of the national forest cover, indispensable in the mitigation of greenhouse gases to minimise the effects of climate change.

In 2020, we received the UN Global Climate Action Award, in the category of Climate-friendly investment finance.  In 2021 we were one of the reasons for receiving the Earthshot Award. Our programme is part of the national targets submitted to the Climate Change Convention, and the National Decarbonisation Plan.

World Bank project. In December 2020, Costa Rica signed an agreement to recognise the economic, forest protection and emissions reduction efforts of thousands of families, communities and public entities that own forest land. 

For its part, the Green Climate Fund, in November 2020, agreed to financial recognition for the metric tons of carbon dioxide captured in 2014 and 2015 by the country's forests.  The main purpose of this money is to strengthen and improve, through REDD+ actions, the PES Programme in private lands and indigenous territories, as well as the control and prevention of forest fires in State Natural Heritage carried out by the National System of Protected Areas (SINAC).

It is a reality that, for many years, our country has been committed to Green Development, with Welfare and Social Justice. We are in a region that must adapt to the impact of climate change in order to continue protecting its biological wealth and its social stability.

The money from your offset purchase is directed to the PES Programme to restore tropical ecosystems and transform agricultural landscapes through financing activities. We aim for 60% coverage.