The Sustainable Travel Finland (STF) label, launched by Visit Finland in 2019, offers tourism companies practical management tools to integrate sustainable practices into their daily operations. The STF labeling process follows a 7-step development path that allows businesses to evaluate and align with the program’s sustainability criteria. These steps include: 1) commitment; 2) skill-building; 3) creating a development plan; 4) sustainability communication; 5) certification and auditing; 6) verification and measurement; and 7) agreement and continuous improvement. This 7-step journey exemplifies an organizational learning process, enabling tourism companies to enhance their sustainability practices by leveraging existing expertise and new knowledge. Using the case of a small tourism company, this post outlines the learning stages that emerged as the firm progressed through the various steps of the STF program. These stages can be categorized as defining purpose, recognizing silent sustainable practices, and translating new knowledge into actionable steps.
Defining Purpose
In the first stage of sustainability learning, the small company clarifies its purpose for pursuing the labeling process, reflecting on past experiences, available resources, and new organizational approaches. While adopting a sustainability label involves rethinking business practices, it also requires recognizing and reinforcing what the organization already does well. This stage includes challenging long-held assumptions about the complexity and rationality of sustainability labels; assumptions that often lead small businesses to underestimate their abilities and discourage them from seeking certification. From this perspective, the organization must learn to allocate resources in ways that support both its ongoing operations and its journey toward greater sustainability. The case revealed that while defining actions and planning the implementation of sustainability principles were relatively straightforward, more challenging tasks included documenting the labeling process, developing clear guidelines, and making the organization’s operations more transparent to stakeholders. These practices required learning and better integration within the organization to meet the demands of the labeling process.
Recognizing "Silent" Sustainable Practices
Once the small company defined its purpose and capabilities for engaging in the sustainability labeling process, it began to focus more on evaluating its strengths and weaknesses. The case revealed that this reflection, prompted by the STF labeling process, uncovered "silent" sustainable practices. These are environmentally and socially responsible practices that are already in place but are performed subconsciously and not explicitly recognized as sustainability efforts. For instance, the firm valued respect for local culture, collaboration with like-minded local businesses, strong stakeholder relationships, and employee well-being as core elements of its business strategy. However, these strengths were not seen as sustainability practices and, as a result, were neither communicated internally nor externally; they were simply taken for granted. Recognizing the importance of its existing practices and their role in advancing sustainability increased the firm's motivation, confidence, and trust in pursuing the STF label. This newfound awareness helped the firm appreciate its current knowledge and practices, fostering further progress toward sustainable development.
Translating New Knowledge into Action
After defining its purpose and recognizing its silent sustainability practices, the small firm began to identify areas of expertise that required further development and focused on integrating new and existing knowledge into actionable steps. The STF labeling process provided a structured framework that supported continuous learning and development. Integrating sustainability into business operations requires precise measurement and evaluation tools. With the help of the STF program, the firm was able to create a management tool that clearly outlined development goals, timelines, required actions, and the individuals responsible for carrying them out. For instance, the company decided to reduce transportation emissions and developed a detailed plan with specific responsibilities for redesigning tour routes and partnering with suppliers offering more eco-friendly fuel options. Without the STF framework, these actions might have been implemented without proper reflection or self-assessment. The STF program proved to be an effective system for verifying, measuring, and evaluating the organization’s sustainability learning. It not only helped make the company’s services more sustainable but also facilitated the documentation of sustainability efforts and learning outcomes. This documentation allowed the firm to effectively communicate its progress to stakeholders—an essential step in fostering transparency and building trust with key partners.
This case offered insights into the sustainability labeling process as experienced by a small tourism firm. It revealed that each organization is unique, with its own working methods and a distinct path toward sustainable tourism. This highlights the importance of allowing organizations to define their own learning and development goals, progressing at their own pace. There is no one-size-fits-all solution for integrating sustainability in small tourism firms. From this perspective, sustainability labels like STF are not pre-packaged models but flexible learning frameworks that can be adapted to the specific needs and expertise of each company.
Note: The post is based on the article "Learning about sustainability in small tourism firms – The case of Sustainable Travel Finland" co-authored with Saija Halminen and published in the Finnish Journal of Tourism Research.
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