Supporting green tourism: Faroo

Article by Barbara Ruiz Lopez from Consorzio Matera Hub
Photo above by www.teresagovino.com

The tourism industry has evolved greatly, especially in the past quarter century, due to globalization and new digital technologies. Today, travel is an easy and affordable activity for a large part of the world’s population. However, we have to bear in mind that this growth has an environmental impact that mainly affects natural resources. After all, environments have a limited capacity to absorb the human activities that take place in it.

In a society where we have more and more awareness of the impact tourism has on the environment, interesting projects such as Faroo, a startup of sustainable tourism benefits, turning tourism into a force for the global good.

Who introduced this tour operator that creates unique trips with a positive impact? Teresa Agovino, a young Italian environmental engineer and sustainable tourism consultant.

Teresa, committed to supporting rural communities, has developed projects in Africa, Asia and South America to train locals in circular economy, waste management and sustainable tourism. In addition, she has certified many tourism companies according to the main international standards of sustainable tourism.

Her mission is to generate a positive impact on the environment and populations. Having lived in many countries in the South, she has felt the negative effect tourism has on the inhabitants. This experience motivated her to support tourism companies in their path to sustainability through training and certifications abiding by the standards of main international organizations. In addition to being a greenfluencer, she spreads awareness on social networks and inspires others to make a positive impact on the planet and local communities.

Credits: faroo.it

Faroo is the project that Teresa created to facilitate the achievement of sustainability certification for tourism businesses, called Faroo Certification. The first standard of free and voluntary sustainable tourism that strives to become an internationally recognized regulatory framework.

This certification is possible thanks to the following steps: self-assessment, virtual audit, certification and continuous improvement. It also has different areas of certification: environment, workers, suppliers, customers and community.

In addition, Faroo performs certified sustainable experiences as a tour operator for companies that really want to transform commercial activities into opportunities to protect the planet. It is a service offered to companies that want to offer sustainable tourism experiences to their employees.

Among these experiences we find retreats such as cheese making, beach cleaning, social agriculture, barefoot sensory journey, among many others. The objective of this service has three advantages for the employee: on-the-job training, corporate welfare and corporate social responsibility.

Such projects give hope to tourism, as an opportunity in local growth, both social and urban development, education, progress in the community, awareness and respect for the environment. Thanks to these initiatives, we have the possibility of doing tourism that, in turn, generates a positive impact.