If you run a hotel chain or a group of companies of any kind, whether national or international, you are probably asking yourself:
Spoiler: Yes, it is possible. And easier than you think.
With Biosphere, you can comprehensively manage the sustainability assessment of each of your business units centrally, with evidence that, once assessed as conforming, you will be able to communicate in real time. Each business unit maintains its own profile, scope and certification process. With our platform, you will be able to organise sustainability actions, provide evidence and check the status of each process with simple, intuitive global dashboards.
The corporate management features are available by taking out our certification service for 5 or more business units. Request more information
Select common requirements for your group and easily adapt them to each unit.
Upload corporate documents just once and reuse them across your entities.
Work with as many people and teams as you need, with no restrictions.
Access indicators, evidence, and progress of all your business units from a centralised virtual dashboard.
API connection with online travel agencies (OTAs) such as Booking.com to showcase your business units’ current certificates.
Flag requirements across the different units of your group and track their progress:assigned ➝ evidenced➝ assessed.
Create a profile for a first business unit. Develop its sustainability plan by assigning and documenting requirements that you know are also carried out by the other units in your group. Quickly identify the level of compliance across all your units.
Sign up for free, with no obligation. Define the entity's basic details and choose its type. Access with this profile and at no cost the "Starters" of the Biosphere Scheme: basic sustainability initiatives designed for the type of company selected during registration.
Work on at least one activity from each Starter and upload the evidence that shows it is already being carried out in that entity (a photo, invoice, video…). The platform will help you easily identify the documents you need to provide to demonstrate each effort.
For €359 a year, you can request a third-party audit for Biosphere Committed level — the entry one of the Biosphere Scheme. To receive this service, you must have demonstrated compliance with the minimum requirements for this level by documenting at least one activity for each Starter.
In the Biosphere Scheme, the levels are progressive. At the Committed level, you gain access to a more extensive catalogue of requirements. With a new audit, included at no extra cost, you will be able to communicate the actions assessed as conforming on your profile, thereby unlocking the Biosphere Certified level.
Use the corporate functions to reuse common documentation, replicate procedures where applicable, and facilitate the management of other profiles within the group. Each business unit maintains its own profile, information, evidence, status and certification process.
By taking out our certification services for 5 or more entities as a corporate group, you will have access to a corporate dashboard with an integral view, and you'll be able to enjoy incredible discounts! Each business unit must have its own profile and individually complete the applicable assessment or certification process. Corporate management allows you to coordinate profiles from a centralised dashboard, without this implying a single certification for the group.
With our annual fees, you receive our certification services with no surprises, no additional costs and no in-person visits.
✔️ Certification service available worldwide and in up to 7 languages
✔️ Annual 100% online audits included in the fee
✔️ OTA integrations for visibility on portals
The financial terms, discounts and services included depend on the number of entities, the scope contracted and the current terms of the certification service.
And if any of the entities in your group is located in a Destination with Biosphere certification, remember that some of these destination management bodies may have programmes with discounts or special terms for companies located in their territory. The availability, scope and percentage of this discount depend on the terms provided by the competent manager offering it. Check the available programmes
No. The Biosphere Scheme is granted individually to each entity included in the certification process. Therefore, a chain or group does not obtain a single certification that automatically extends to all of its establishments or entities.
Each hotel, restaurant or establishment must create its own profile and individually complete the corresponding certification process in order to obtain its certificate. This is the only way to guarantee that the documentation assessed genuinely corresponds to what each individual entity does, rather than assuming that an entire group complies because part of it does.
If your entity is part of a chain or a group, the Biosphere Sustainable platform — Biosphere Responsible Tourism's working tool throughout the whole certification process— is indeed designed to facilitate that joint management. This platform offers a corporate dashboard from which to view, monitor and centrally manage the individual certification processes of its different business units. The platform also allows the management of protocols, plans or other common corporate documentation that may be applicable to different entities within the group. Likewise, as many users as the group needs can be registered to facilitate the management of all the documentation.
These corporate features are solely for document management during the certification process; the certificate itself always remains individual, per entity.
If you are part of a group or chain and are interested in purchasing our platform and certification services for 5 or more entities in your group, write to us at info@biospheresustainable.com
As a chain or group, management can be carried out using corporate group functionalities, but the certificate will always be individual for each entity. When working on your certification with Biosphere Responsible Tourism, you have a series of functionalities designed specifically for corporate management: our Biosphere Sustainable platform offers an intuitive, centralised control panel from which to view the progress and indicators of all your entities at once, the ability to define a common corporate sustainability plan that is then applied and adapted to each business unit, multiple-upload tools for evidence to speed up work across several individual profiles simultaneously, and unlimited access at no additional cost for as many users as you need.
It is precisely this layer of joint management that tends to raise the question of whether, at some point in the process, the group itself becomes certified. And the answer is no: the unit that is certified remains, in every case, the individual entity. This is not a limitation of the platform, but a consequence of how any third-party certification process works: the evidence that is audited — policies, agreements, photographs — belongs to the actual operations of a specific entity, and it is on that demonstrable reality that the certificate is issued. That is why each entity creates its own profile, works on its own sustainability plan and obtains, independently of the rest, its own certificate. There is no such thing, and none can be set up, as a single corporate profile replacing the individual profiles: if one is created, it is removed without prior notice, with the consequent loss of all associated information.
As a certification body, Biosphere Responsible Tourism (BRT) cannot offer you consultancy support or take part in the design or preparation of your entity's documentation —for example, telling you whether a specific document is sufficient to demonstrate conformity with a requirement, or advising you on how to plan or carry out an action to pass the assessment—, whatever the scheme under which you become certified with us.
BRT is the body responsible for assessing entities' conformity and for adopting the corresponding certification decisions, including their granting, maintenance, suspension or withdrawal. For this reason, we must preserve our impartiality and avoid any consultancy activity that could compromise the independence required of a certification body.
The support we can offer you within our certification services is limited to explaining how our working tools (the Biosphere Sustainable platform and repository) function, and the different steps of the certification process with our body. Likewise, we can provide you with assistance in the event of incidents related to our services and tools, and inform you about the channels available for enquiries, complaints and appeals.
In the specific case of the certification process with BRT under the Biosphere Scheme —at present, the only one we offer— you will not need additional help to complete the process: our Biosphere Sustainable platform is designed so that you can work through it autonomously. There you will find the explanation of each requirement as set out by the scheme, clear guidance on what documentation is valid as evidence for each requirement, and all the information relating to the audit steps, audit reports and document uploads.
All in a simple, fast and intuitive digital system! That is why it is just as useful for sole traders as for small, medium and large businesses, with management functionalities designed for each case.
And if you need to involve several people from your team, you don't need to worry about that either: our platform allows access to be given to as many users as you need, at no additional cost. You can add whoever works with you on the sustainability plan and the certification documentation, whether staff from your own entity or external personnel you have hired to help you, such as specialised consultants.
Getting certified with Biosphere Responsible Tourism (BRT) under the Biosphere Scheme means that an external and independent audit team will review the evidence of your sustainability actions and it will be decided, on the basis of that evidence, whether your entity meets the requirements of the scheme. Based on the results of the process, BRT will take the corresponding certification decision; it is therefore not a certification that can be self-awarded, nor a label that can be obtained without assessment.
The certification process with BRT begins on the Biosphere Sustainable platform, 100% online and in the language of your choice, from among the 7 languages in which we offer our services.
Creating your profile on the platform is free of charge: only when you decide to move forward to the assessment of the documentation provided by your entity do you need to contract our certification services. The fee is €359 per entity, which covers the assessment services for 365 days, for the certification scheme and scope contracted, including the corresponding annual assessment or audit in accordance with the terms of the service. This fee covers the audit services you need for your entity's profile under the Biosphere Scheme, in order to receive the conformity assessment at the Committed level and at the Certified level of this certification process. This service is limited to one audit per level and one correction per level within the contracted period. These attempts allow you to correct or complete the information requested and resubmit the profile for review.
The level of certificate you can obtain under the Biosphere Scheme depends on the type of entity and on compliance with the conditions established by the Scheme for obtaining it: for businesses, the certification levels are Biosphere Committed and Biosphere Certified, Committed being the first certification level. To find out about the requirements and levels of the Biosphere Scheme, please visit the website of the Responsible Tourism Institute (RTI): www.responsibletourisminstitute.com