The Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA), located in Bangkok, Thailand, has achieved Silver-level Sustainability Certification by EarthCheck, one of the world’s leading scientific benchmarking, certification and advisory group for the travel and tourism industry. The official certificate handover ceremony took place during the PATA Annual Summit 2016, immediately following the meeting of the PATA Sustainability & Social Responsibility Committee.
The team at PATA worked with guidance from EarthCheck to collect and collate operational data and information on its practices in order to be benchmarked against EarthCheck’s global sustainability standard. This important milestone follows PATA’s previous achievement of Bronze Benchmarked Sustainability Certification in 2015. The benchmarking data addressed a wide range of issues, including water, waste, and energy use, risk management, community contributions and the use of paper, chemicals, and cleaning products. EarthCheck’s three-tiered rating of Bronze, Silver, and Gold status is built on the belief that effective scientific benchmarking puts rigour and transparency into business processes, benefitting all stakeholders in the long term.
Mario Hardy, CEO, PATA said, “Our team has worked tirelessly and has taken great measures to achieve Silver recognition. I am proud of our staff for committing to sustainability initiatives in our office and look forward to even more continued improvements by striving to minimise our use of water, energy, and paper, and by also reducing our waste. We wish to show our members and partners what environmental leadership is about, and encourage them to follow suit.”
Stewart Moore, CEO and founder, EarthCheck, said that the Pacific Asia Travel Association is now recognised both in the community and business tourism industry as a sustainability leader. “PATA is the first Administration Office in Thailand to achieve this highly sought-after recognition. In doing so, it is measuring its performance against best practices and making positive changes to reduce its environmental footprint and improve its social impact,” he added.
