With demand for accreditation around the world increasing, EC3 Global, a subsidiary of the Sustainable Tourism Co-operative Research Centre, and managers of Green Globe, has appointed Hyder Consulting as the first international company to be trained as auditors of the Green Globe Company Standard.

Green Globe is the international Benchmarking and Certification programme for the travel and tourism industry based on the Agenda 21 principles for Sustainable Development endorsed by 182 Heads of State at the United Nations Rio Earth Summit in 1992.

In July 2007 Novotel, the upscale and midscale brand of Accor, the European leader and a major global hotel group, entered into an agreement with EC3 Global to have all 400 properties certified under the Green Globe Company Standard by 2010.

EC3 CEO, Stewart Moore, said “Novotel’s involvement in the Green Globe programme will help set new environmental standards for the hospitality industry and our relationship with Hyder Consulting will provide access to a network of professional and highly skilled Auditors throughout the globe to provide the third party independent verification, a key component of the Green Globe programme.

Chris Hamon, Hyder’s Global Leader – Marketing and Sales, said “It’s an exciting time to be getting involved with EC3 Global specifically in relation to the Green Globe accreditation process. It seems a natural extension to the work we’ve already been doing on environmental impact assessments of major tourism developments for many years in countries such as Australia, UAE, Bahrain, China and Vietnam.”