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Lodges currently undergoing rating: Background: ECOCLUB aims to create a transparent & democratic ecotourism rating system. By harnessing the power of Ecotourists and the Internet, we want to encourage accommodation providers to follow the Five ECOCLUB Ecotourism Criteria. We also want to discourage greenwashing while at the same recognising and giving the benefit of the doubt to genuine efforts in an imperfect world. The usual, valid, criticisms against ecolabels are that they are expensive, opaque, that there is a conflict of interest, and that they are little more than marketing tools. We have been thinking and discussing these real problems with our Members and friends over the past 9 years, as ECOCLUB has matured and evolved. As Member numbers grow, we now feel obliged to start working towards an alternative & meaningful rating system. We are therefore introducing a pilot rating scheme that will be available at no extra charge to our Business Members, as transparent as possible, with minimum conflict of interest, which will hopefully be much more than a marketing tool to our Members. It will certainly be far from perfect, especially in its early stages, but in the dynamic & democratic spirit of the Internet, it will aspire to constantly improve, to be open, participatory, interactive, constantly evolving. Greenwashing must stop. So should the attempted marginalisation of the broad Ecotourism movement by an unholy alliance who would like to reduce it to 'a market segment' dealing with nature tourism and replace it with new, hollow tourism brands. Ecotourism as ECOCLUB defines it, is an Ecological, Humanist and Epicurean philosophy and practice, so beyond minimising environmental impact, our rating system will incorporate respect to human rights, employee rights and social responsibility. We believe in and focus on individuals, self-employed, and small tourism businesses, and would like to assist them in realising their power (in numbers) to change tourism, to understand and assume their responsibilities to society & the environment. Our rating system will acknowledge this preference, and we will remain indifferent to powerful tourism interests – those preferred by 'supermarket' ecolabels for financial reasons. Our independent effort will remain free of the political expediencies, corruption, bureaucratic indifference and inflexibility of many state and parastatal ecolabels. And it will be carbon-neutral too – no plastic, no flashy brochures and gimmicks– all electronic. No unnecessary travel by eco-certifiers either, we will let ecotourists do the travelling, the inspecting and the voting with their feet! Rules: A. Application: Optionally, and at no extra cost, Business Members who are accommodation providers, can apply online for an ECOCLUB Rating, in effect for their accommodation facility (only one per Business Membership) to be rated against the five ECOCLUB Ecotourism Criteria:
B.
Questionnaire: 2. Each picture should be accompanied by a 25-50 words description so as to clearly explain what the picture illustrates. The Applicant must specify in which criterion section each picture should be entered. C:
Public Scrutiny & Member Vote: 1. The ECOCLUB Team will then publicly post the Applicant's replies and pictures, in a dedicated webpage without any editing apart from spelling mistakes and image resizing (to 600 x 450 pixels, 60 KB max). 2. Members will then be invited to submit by email a rating for the particular property. Names will be kept secret from the applicant. The rating period will normally last 30 days. However if less than 30 Members have voted, it will be extended for another 30 days. There will not be any further extensions, irrespective of the number of votes received. All votes will be analytically displayed using a histogram. 3. How to rate: The first 5 sections of each application each correspond to a rating criterion of equal weight (1). The maximum rating each Member can submit is 5, and the minimum 0. 4. When a criterion is fully met in their view, Members should award a full point (1), when it is not met but genuine effort is being made, half a point (0.5) and when you feel that it is not met and no effort is being made to meet the criterion, no points (0). 5. Applicants, and applicants employees are not allowed to rate their own business, and the ECOCLUB Team will not rate either. 6. How the Rating will be calculated & displayed: The rating will be the average of votes cast rounded up to 1 decimal point. For example an average vote of 2.95 will lead to a rating of 3.0 while a rating of 2.94 will lead to a rating of 2.9. The rating will be displayed next to the relevant business listing in our Country and Business Directory, in the form of an ECOCLUB Rating Logo that will include the rating date and the name of the rated facility. If applicants decide to use the ECOCLUB Rating logo on their website they must link it to the page containing their rating details at www.ecoclub.com for verification purposes. Those facilities that achieve at least a rating of 3.0 out of 5 will be recognised as "Ecolodge Members" and will appear in a separate, prominent section of our country pages and our thematic directory, and enjoy additional promotion throughout our website. The rating will be valid for a minimum of one year and a maximum of three, as long as the Applicant continues to be a Business Member. After one year, the Applicant may apply for a new rating, if in their view circumstances have improved. Applicants will not have the right to veto or 'hide' a rating, if they find it unfavourable.
ECOCLUB Rating - an affordable, transparent &
democratic ecotourism rating system! |
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