Today, May 25th, 2018, a group of 123 volunteers -including 36 foreigners- carried out a symbolic planting of 500 trees in Salitrillos de Montes de Oca. With this call to action, the Costa Rican Association of Tourism Professionals (ACOPROT) closes the actions undertaken to follow its path as the first fair of its kind in the 100% sustainable region.
In adherence to the sustainability plan established for Expotur 2018, the fair fulfilled its environmental commitment and received for the fifth consecutive year the Ecological Blue Flag in the Events category and also received part of the 100% Carbon Neutral program, an international declaration of Carbon Neutrality.
This process is endorsed internationally by Co2Balance of London and by CarbonFund.org of New York. Expotur’s footprint was neutralized with carbon credits from the REDD + Envira Amazon Project project of the Carbonfund Foundation, the largest recovery project in the Amazon basin currently in existence.
“Certainly for our Program, receiving EXPOTUR, and therefore ACOPROT, as a new member is an honor; not only because of the international renown of the event, but because ACOPROT demonstrates, through this International Declaration of Carbon Neutrality, that its leadership in the sustainability issue is not only in words but in concrete actions. And, it is certainly a message to the country that an all-out event can also be a Carbon Neutral event”, said Javier Segura, Director of the 100% Carbon Neutral Program.
And because of its international declaration, EXPOTUR, in Costa Rica, is part of the CarbonFree Partnership, which is one of the most important groups of carbon-neutral organizations and companies and the most renowned in the United States. There, EXPOTUR shares membership with brands such as Virgin America, LG, DELL, Motorola, Avis, JetBlue, National Geographic, Budget Rent-a-car, and similar ones.
Regarding the social and economic axes, the organization carried out different initiatives that reaffirm its commitment to be a model event in terms of sustainability.
“Being consistent with the destiny that we are and especially with the value of sustainability that we want to continue projecting from the country, as an organization we commit ourselves to strengthen the actions that we implement in environmental sustainability during Expotur. Our goal is that we can become more than an example to follow and not only in environmental sustainability but also in the other axes, the social and economic”, said Massi Devoto, President of ACOPROT.
To calculate the carbon footprint, the internationally accepted protocols that take into account the emission factors such as hydrocarbon emissions, administration of refrigerant gases, solid and liquid wastes were used; and other factors specific to the process.
“We are very pleased with the results of Expotur 2018, once again we confirm that this is the main tourist marketing exchange in the country, in the region and one of the most important in Latin America, and that its contribution to the sector is very significant. We are working hard on the next edition to reinvent the fair in its 35th anniversary”, concluded Devoto.
