Ayesa and Turismo de Canarias launch an initiative to reduce the carbon footprint of the Canary Islands

The public company, which belongs to the Regional Government of the Canary Islands, has worked with Ayesa to launch a free digital tool designed to enable businesses to calculate and reduce their carbon footprint.

Turismo de Canarias, a state-owned company under the Ministry of Tourism and Employment of the Canary Islands, and Ayesa, a global technology and engineering services provider, have launched a free digital tool aimed at promoting the sustainability of the local tourism sector. Businesses can now use the tool to assess their carbon footprint as well as plan and implement specific measures aimed at reducing it.

The pioneering app is part of the ‘Journey Towards Decarbonisation’ initiative, spearheaded by the Canary Islands Tourism Sustainability Office. It offers companies a private area where they are able to establish their baseline by calculating their carbon footprint and environmental management maturity level, as well as identify areas for improvement. They can then use this to create a strategy and action plan to reduce their emissions with guides and other resources provided. The ultimate aim is to provide them with a roadmap for their journey to becoming a more environmentally friendly company.

The ‘journey’ comprises four stages, Calculate, Define, Reduce and Compensate. This allows companies to track their progress and make adjustments where necessary. Once a company has calculated its carbon footprint, it completes the environmental management maturity questionnaire to determine its short and long-term objectives. A series of best practices are then provided, which it can choose to implement depending on the type of business. Downloadable guides for monitoring are also available.

The app also includes a webchat that companies can use to ask any questions they have regarding how it works, the concepts it is based on, or anything else related to their journey towards decarbonisation.

As part of the project, Ayesa is also responsible for providing technical and strategic advice for the app, as well as continuously improving its usability and content.

Ayesa has also implemented the software on which the app is based. To do this, it has chosen Drupal because of its content and user management features, allowing levels and types of access to be established. The app has been deployed on Google Cloud Platform.

Pilot tests

Over a year ago, 35 tourism providers in the Canary Islands, such as hotels and restaurants as well as tourist attraction, transport, sailing, excursion and adventure tourism companies, began testing the calculation model.

Over this period, they were able to validate the model, which is based on calculating a company’s carbon footprint as well as a self-diagnosis questionnaire to establish environmental management maturity. A new pilot test will now be launched. This will involve the 35 companies validating the roadmap provided by the app.

The next phase will see the app made available to another 300 companies, i.e. 10% of all companies on the General Register of Tourism Companies in the Canary Islands. Once this has been completed, it will be offered to all tourism service providers on the islands. The application is expected to be used extensively, raising awareness of the importance of sustainability for both individual companies and the Canary Islands as a whole. Given the increasing emphasis placed on sustainability by tourists, the initiative will undoubtedly increase the competitiveness of the islands’ companies and make it a more attractive destination.