The Biosphere Certification Scheme
Biosphere is the certification scheme of the Responsible Tourism Institute (RTI), whose requirements are structured around the United Nations' 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The ITR, a body established in 1997 under a founding memorandum of understanding with UNESCO to drive sustainability in the tourism sector, owns the Scheme and is responsible for its development and maintenance, establishing its requirements, rules and operating conditions. The ITR does not take part in the assessment, review or certification decision of entities, which fall to the certification bodies authorised to operate the Scheme.
Biosphere Certification
Biosphere Responsible Tourism, S.L. (BRT) is the certification body authorised by the Responsible Tourism Institute (RTI) to operate the Biosphere Scheme and independently assess entities' conformity with its requirements.
BRT's certification processes are third-party, with external and independent audits, and follow the principles of competence, consistency and impartiality that the ISO/IEC 17065 standard requires of those who apply it. At BRT we offer our certification services in 7 languages and 100% online, with coverage for companies of different types —hotels, restaurants, museums, among others— and for tourism-territorial management bodies, which in this repository we call «destinations». Currently, the certification services offered by BRT are for the Biosphere scheme.
To carry out the certification processes online, BRT has designed its own Biosphere Sustainable platform; a virtual system where each entity interested in becoming certified registers its profile and completes its certification process autonomously. There the entity can consult the applicable requirements of the Scheme, structured around the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and provide, manage and consult the documentation and evidence it supplies for its assessments through the third-party audits.
Once its documented actions have been assessed, BRT reports them in this public web repository, which lists all entities with a certification in force, so that anyone interested can consult the assessed actions, the validity period and scope of the certificate, and the rest of the information of interest regarding the certifications issued by this body.
Our tools:
Behind every Biosphere certification issued by BRT there is an ever-growing community: thousands of entities around the world rely on Biosphere Responsible Tourism's tools and services to manage their certification process autonomously, document their actions and submit their information for assessment through third-party audits. In this way, once their certification has been granted, their information can be consulted publicly in this repository.
- Biosphere Sustainable Platform: This is the tool we have designed at BRT for every business or destination management body to manage its own certification process: create your profile, upload the evidence for assessment through third-party audits, all 100% online and in 7 languages. If you are part of a chain or a group, the platform allows you to manage each establishment's certification individually from a centralised corporate panel, with functionalities designed to work with all the information from a single place.
- This web repository: Once certification has been granted, the entity's profile becomes part of this public repository, where anyone interested —end consumers, partners, suppliers— can consult the assessed actions, the validity and the scope of its certification. In this way, this information ceases to be internal data of the assessed entity and is communicated publicly and accessibly to anyone who looks for it.