myclimate «Cause We Care» provides a dialogue with customers and guests and generates funding for climate neutral offers and effective local sustainability measures. With 48 businesses participating up until now, all expectations for the pilot phase have been exceeded and three million bookings where climate protection is a key component have already been made.
“Today's launch of myclimate «Cause We Care» is the highpoint of our two-and-a-half-year development phase. In this time, we have been able to inspire 48 Swiss tourism providers with the community-based climate protection approach, which we have successfully developed and implemented with Swiss Youth Hostels for more than ten years. Together with existing and many new partners, we would also like to make a substantial contribution to making Swiss tourism more sustainable. Special thanks at this point are due to the Innotour programme from SECO, which has supported the development of the programme since 2017,” said Basil Gantenbein, Project Leader of myclimate «Cause We Care» .
Urs Wohler, CEO of Niesenbahn Ltd. and "Cause We Care" partner from day one, praises the programme: “We have been part of «Cause We Care» from the beginning because we want to achieve greater sustainability and climate protection within the tourism industry as part of a constantly expanding network. The initiatives bring providers and customers together and unite local measures with the responsibility for the global climate.”
Success story: myclimate «Cause We Care»
Since the start of the project, myclimate «Cause We Care» has implemented climate protection measures with demonstrable success and encouraged sustainable local innovations. With the help of partners, 2.95 million «Cause We Care» bookings have been realised to date. Thanks to voluntary guest contributions, these bookings are climate neutral and encourage sustainability on a local level. In total, more than 45,000 tonnes of CO2 have been offset as part of myclimate carbon offset projects and just under three million francs have been generated for climate protection measures locally. «Cause We Care» partners include businesses from the hotel and youth hostel sector, mountain railways, destinations, event and tour providers. With the launch of the programme, myclimate «Cause We Care» is now offered in French in French speaking Switzerland. The implementation partner here is the myclimate partner ecoLive from Geneva.
Numerous new partners
In the last six months alone, some 20 providers from various areas have signed up to myclimate «Cause We Care» . New partners from the hotel trade include the properties of the Tschuggen Hotel Group, the ten operations run by Sunstar Hotels, the Hotel Schweizerhof Bern & THE SPA, The River House Boutique Hotel in Andermatt, the Centro Magliaso and the CERVO Mountain Boutique Resort in Zermatt. In the event sector, guests can now look forward to the opportunity to participate in more climate protection at the Ski World Cup in Adelboden, the two races of IRONMAN Switzerland in Thun and Rapperswil, at all events of mrw event gmbh as well as at Swiss Epic. Similarly, with Thurgau Travel, the Cruise & Ferry Center and GAST Ltd. the programme has acquired its first tour operators. As a highlight, the two top destinations Zurich and Davos-Klosters round off this intake of new partners.
Diverse networking session marks official launch
On Tuesday 12 November, myclimate «Cause We Care» was officially launched in the Hotel Schweizerhof Bern with a networking session. With an audience of some 90 participants, Professor Stefan Forster from the Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW), Richard Kämpf from the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO), Marc Sommer from the Swiss Tourism Association (STV), Hotelier of the Year 2018 Kurt Baumgartner, Roland Zegg from grischconsulta and Samuel Wille from Switzerland Tourism discussed the challenges and opportunities presented by sustainable tourism in Switzerland.
With Swiss Youth Hostels, TESSVM Ltd. (Tourism in Engadin, Scuol, Samnaun, Val Müstair), Pizolbahnen (Pizol Railways) as well as the 2019 Swiss Wrestling and Alpine Festival in Zug, four «Cause We Care» partners presented their successes in implementing the programme. The exemplary Swiss Youth Hostels impressively demonstrated the development of their operational sustainability, which has been substantially increased thanks to the «Cause We Care» approach since 2008. As a destination organisation, TESSVM was able to generate a high participation rate of more than 60% thanks to the effective use of local service providers. The Pizolbahnen presented the extensive communication measures they use to inform their customer base about myclimate «Cause We Care» . Among other things, there is now a fully programme-branded sustainability car with information about the engagement with sustainability of the Pizolbahnen as well as a photo box, which enables a playful interactive analysis of the programme. The Swiss Wrestling and Alpine Festival used myclimate «Cause We Care» as an umbrella for a holistic sustainability concept. Through the close interlinking of the organisation committee with sponsors and visitors, the festival was carried out in a climate neutral way and lasting local climate protection action was taken.
In the second part, feasible, practical sustainability solutions were presented. The breadth of the offering contained the first steps towards the implementation of myclimate «Cause We Care» , operational environmental accounting using myclimate smart3 and resource-efficient solutions, the avoidance of food waste through the digital solution from KITRO, sustainability certifications with partners TourCert and ibex fairstay, as well as totally chemical-free room cleaning by Medicleantec Microsteam.
myclimate «Cause We Care»
«Cause We Care» participants offer their customers or their guests the opportunity to voluntarily invest a small amount in climate protection and sustainability when booking a service or purchasing a product. Part of this contribution is used to offset the climate-damaging emissions associated with the product, via high quality carbon offset projects from the myclimate foundation. The product or service is thereby rendered climate neutral.
What is special about myclimate «Cause We Care» is that the company or destination in question matches the contribution and pays the same amount into a special-purpose fund. Together with the remaining customer contributions, the fund finances climate protection and on-site sustainability measures. The uses of the fund and the local projects are verified by myclimate. Up until its official launch the programme was supported by Innotour, the programme to promote innovation in tourism run by SECO.
These partners have now joined myclimate «Cause We Care».