Building Resilient Destinations
Pledge by
Iberostar Group
Through the protection, restoration and sustainable management of coastal ecosystems, at Iberostar we are committed to improving coastal and ocean health and promoting regenerative tourism
- Type
- Conserving, Restoring & Growing, Enabling
- This pledge will take place from
- 2022 to 2030
- Location
- Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Mexico and more
Pledge overview
Through our Wave of Change movement, at Iberostar we are pioneering a responsible tourism movement that improves coastal health, promotes responsible seafood consumption, and moves towards a circular economy. Our core commitments include achieving carbon neutrality by 2030 and ensuring that ecosystems are improving ecological health alongside profitable tourism in the destinations where we operate, alsoby 2030. The pledge of carbon neutrality is based on decarbonization, primarily through emissions reductions in our operations. The remainder of emissions will be compensated primarily through nature-based solutions that enable the protection, restoration, and sustainable management of marine ecosystems. Investing in developing projects and partnering with local stakeholders with high-value carbon establishes a financial mechanism for the conservation and long-term sustainable management of fragile ecosystems that provide valuable services to people and the economy. Furthermore, improving the health of the ecosystems will build the resilience of destinations through risk mitigation, water quality improvement, food security, and recreational value, amongst others.
Actions in this pledge
-
Conserving trees and forest landscapes
Supporting actions
- Conservation support activities
- Support the operating costs and activities of existing conservation areas, including advocacy for conservation policy
Additional details
At Iberostar we are working with governments and communities to support the establishment and/or management of protected areas in the destinations we operate. In these areas, we will financially support operation and restoration costs as well as providing technical expertise.
Conserving
- Land area
- 1'000 hectares
-
Restoring and growing trees and forest landscapes
Supporting actions
- Assisted natural regeneration
- Actions that support natural regeneration without tree planting, such as Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration, forest soil remediation, exotic species control, disease prevention, and wildfire protection
- Reforestation
- Re-establishment of forest through planting and/or deliberate seeding on land classified as forest, that has been degraded or where trees are unlikely to regenerate naturally
- Mangrove restoration
- Establishment or enhancement of mangroves along coastal areas and in estuaries
- Urban tree planting
- Planting and maintaining trees within urban areas
Additional details
The high value sequestration projects will build on schemes working with communities in different modalities that include payment for ecosystem services, reforestation and afforestation, assisted regeneration and blue carbon initiatives. At Iberostar we will conduct forest and mangrove restoration as well as dune plants recovery and restoration in our own properties. In 2022 we will plant over 1000 mangroves in the Dominican Republic alone and over 1500 dune plants in Mexico. All our properties are entering a regreening process, to accomplish a 3:1 green plot ratio, eliminate invasive species and move towards gardening with native plants.
Restoring & Growing
- Land area
- 22'000 hectares
-
Enabling activities for trees and forest landscapes
Supporting actions
- Nursery and seedling development
- Establish tree nurseries, including actions such as identification and collection of seeds and/or growing seedlings
- Sustainable forest management
- Activities that support the stewardship and use of forests (including by local communities and indigenous peoples), to maintain their biological diversity, productivity, and regeneration capacity, as well as their potential to fulfil relevant ecological economic and social functions
- Education and capacity building
- Forest / tree species conservation and restoration education programmes, targeted educational and behaviour change campaigns, training and capacity building, including promotion of local and traditional knowledge and practices
- Community mobilisation
- Community mobilisation and engagement activities for conservation, restoration and reforestation, including enabling systems of community governance, etc.
- Data collection, management and technological tools
- Activities that provide data and/or technological tools to support conservation and restoration (e.g. monitoring etc.)
Additional details
At Iberostar we place high importance on integrating local communities in carbon sequestration efforts to reduce leakage. This integration includes capacity building, governance strengthening, and access to alternative economic activities in the properties like ecotourism. All of our work has a robust scientific approach where data collection is essential in ensuring adequate baselines, monitoring, and corrective actions. In addition, all our efforts include capacity building of our employees in areas of operation that overlap through our internal education tools and outreach to our clients.
Enabling
Our ecologically and socially responsible approach
At Iberostar we are following the IUCN Global Standard for Nature-based Solutions. We also have established a roadmap 2022-2030 with clear KPIs that will be monitored by a team of scientists.
In addition to basing the carbon offset work on recognized standards such like VERRA and CAR, we are developing our own protocols adjusted to the tourism sector.
Our results tracking
We have developed a roadmap with KPIs to track progress.
Ecological metrics
- CO2/carbon sequestered;
- Area under sustainable management or conservation;
- Species protected;
- Improved health of ecosystems (Coastal Health Index);
- Increased biomass
Social metrics
- Economic benefits for communities;
- Number of community members employed/engaged in community;
- Increased awareness amongst communities
Our system of accreditation
We are currently still evaluating accreditation or third-party verification. However, for carbon sequestration we are looking at VERRA and/or CAR.
Our partners
Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources of the Dominican Republic, GIZ, Secretaries of Tourism and of Environment of Quintana Roo, Amigos de Sian Kaan in Mexico IMEDEA UNAM
Our locations
We are working at locations across Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Mexico, and Spain.