The eight accommodation facilities of the SMARTments chain in Germany and Austria have been certified with the "Biosphere" distinction, the international assessment system developed by the Responsible Tourism Institute in accordance with the 17 Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations.

The certification for the SMARTments Business portfolio, which belongs to the GBI group of companies, is also something very special for the Biosphere organisation: "After several chains and groups have undergone our assessment system, and with the system enabled in 7 different languages, SMARTments Business is the first to complete the process entirely in German", says Beatriz Margallo Moscoso, Export Manager at Biosphere.

"The fact that we managed the audit process so well makes us proud", says Burak Ünver, Managing Director of SMARTments Business: "Our aim was to use the certification to demonstrate not only the sustainability of our concept in terms of ecology, energy efficiency and climate friendliness, but also in terms of positive social impact. Because that is our claim for all our houses".

For the future SMARments accommodations, the criteria of the Biosphere seal have also been established from the outset as a basis for the construction planning. Three further SMARTments for long-stay travellers are currently under construction in Frankfurt and Hamburg. According to Ünver, the Biosphere certification has a special motivating aspect for his team of around 50 employees: "The Biosphere programme concept enables each of our accommodation complexes to implement the sustainability goals independently and to continue them in-house, to document them and to provide the necessary evidence independently", Ünver emphasises: "This decentralised implementation increases the employees' sense of responsibility for sustainability". Because, in the CEO's opinion, motivated employees, who make every decision with sustainability impact in mind, are the best guarantee that Biosphere requirements will also be met in the future. In Ünver's words: "If every employee feels that they can make a difference in terms of sustainability and the teams on site live this approach, SMARTments' business will continue to be exemplary in this respect in the future".

Despite the awards previously received by all SMARTments businesses, the group's efforts towards greater sustainability have only just begun, and they especially note their satisfaction with the system adopted by the Biosphere methodology, where businesses are not only checked once at the beginning of the process - reaching the required optimum level - but, once certification is achieved, maintain their distinction over time through annual random verification systems; so that sustainable efforts must continually adapt to changes and be tested to continue to meet sustainability requirements. Furthermore, according to the certification requirements, both the guests and the respective destination must benefit from it. As a prerequisite for the award of the seal, all sub-areas of the UN goals (environment and climate change; society and culture; governance and economy) must be sufficiently covered. As the UN identifies sustainability, it must be worked on holistically, and not by objectives limited to individual topics.