Assessment & Reporting System

User manual of the online platform

for

DESTINATIONS

www.greendestinations.eu

Version 2.8

Dec 2019

Content

1. Introduction .................................................................................................................................... 1

2. Login ................................................................................................................................................ 1

3. My Space ......................................................................................................................................... 2

3.1 My space - My profile ................................................................................................................... 2

3.2 My space- My staff ........................................................................................................................ 3

4. Assessment & Reporting – Green Destinations Standard .............................................................. 5

4.1 Criteria Overview and assessment ................................................................................................ 5

4.1.1 Reporting ................................................................................................................................ 6

4.1.2 Guidance ................................................................................................................................ 7

4.1.3 Remarks.................................................................................................................................. 8

4.1.4 Action Plan ........................................................................................................................... 10

4.2 My Action Plans .......................................................................................................................... 11

4.3 Sustainability Report ................................................................................................................... 12

4.4 Remarks Report........................................................................................................................... 12

5. Assessment & Reporting - Green Destinations Indicator Report* ............................................... 13

5.1 Accessing the Green Destinations Database of quality indicators ............................................. 13

5.2 The Indicator Report ................................................................................................................... 13

5.3 The indicators .............................................................................................................................. 14

5.5 Indicators without a ‘Review’ button ......................................................................................... 16

Annex 1: External database sources ..................................................................................................... 17

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1. Introduction Welcome to the Green Destinations online platform! This manual aims to guide Destination-

users through our system and help you to navigate through all its features.

In case of any questions or recommendations, please contact us via

platform@greendestinations.org!

2. Login You have a received an email from platform@greendestinations.org with your login details. If that

is not the case please contact us via this email address.

Go to http://www.greendestinations.eu to login.

Please fill in your username and password to log in to sign on the online platform. The login page

also gives you the option to change your language settings as seen in the upper right-hand corner of

the screen.

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3. My Space In the ‘My Space’ section is where you can see and edit your destination details.

3.1 My space - My profile Click on “My space” and “My Profile” to complete your personal details, and click update to save

changes. You can update your data at any time, or change your password if needed.

For first time logging in, click tab “organisation” to edit or complete your destination, organisation,

country, and preferred language.

On the tab “coordinator”, the contact details are that of the first contact person of the destination

(regarded as the destination’s sustainability coordinator); as coordinators, you can complete personal

details and what position you hold as coordinator here. Then click update to save information.

You can change your email address that you wish to use; but remember that this will then also be your

new login name to access the system.

As stated, the coordinator must be an existing staff member. In order to make another person the

destination’s sustainability coordinator, the current sustainability coordinator should:

1) Add the new coordinator as new ‘staff member’ of the destination under My Space

My staff > Add new member.

2) Go back to “Coordinator” tab and add select the new Sustainability Coordinator from the list.

Click ‘Update’ at the bottom of the page.

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You are able to change your password at any time, but clicking “change password” tab under My

profile.

3.2 My space- My staff This feature allows you to add staff members, register staff members, remove members if needed,

and send mail to selected users. You are also able to approve membership of selected users.

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Icons under Staff Members:

These are the most important functions:

- This icon allows you to add staff members as seen below:

- This icon allows you to remove selected staff members from using the platform.

-This icon allows you to send mail to the staff members you have selected.

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4. Assessment & Reporting – Green Destinations Standard

The menu item “Assessment and reporting” brings you to below new ‘Overview’ page where you can

select which type of assessment you would like to do (Quick Scan or Standard = full report) by clicking

“view” button behind the respective ‘Open Report’ (not all destinations will see the full Green

Destinations Standard).

Finished assessments can here be shared, published and transferred to PDF by clicking the respective

buttons.

4.1 Criteria Overview and assessment But to start, first click “View” to arrive at the Criteria overview of assessment page (see below).

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On the right side of the screen, you can adjust some visual settings for example to show all subthemes,

show reporting progress, show questions, notes or suggestions.

Start your report by adding some factual information of in theme 0: “Destination characteristics”.

You’ll see the following subthemes: General information, scope of the assessment, geographical data.

Click ‘Yes’ to validate all data of this theme 0.

4.1.1 Green destinations Standard Reporting Themes 1-6 contain the 96 Green Destinations Standard criteria. The text under the criterion title

represents the main criterion description; you are expected to report on each criterion.

Clicking through the criteria, you can tick ‘Completed’ if you have finished reporting on your

compliance and uploading documentation, following the reporting instructions. All texts will be saved

automatically once you click away from the page. Tick ‘Not yet completed’ to indicate the criterion

still needs attention.

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CLICK ‘SAVE’ AFTER ADDING CONTENT

Uploading files with the File Manager

To upload files to a specific criterion, use the file manager.

Here, ‘My Uploads’ is your destination’s collection of uploaded files that can be connected to any

(number of) criteria. To upload a document for the first time, go to tab ‘Upload new file’. Connect

the uploaded file to the criterion clicking ‘+’ behind the filename under ‘My uploads’.

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You can upload multiple files at the same time,

for example if you created a folder with

relevant documents on your PC and want to

upload everything at once to the platform

You can also easily connect pictures to a

criterion by using the ‘Image gallery’

Optional vs Mandatory criteria

In principle destinations should report on all criteria, except when the

criterion is marked as ‘Not Mandatory’ (indicated with ‘–‘). You can

report about these criteria to gain bonus points but are not mandatory to

receive ‘Certified’ status according to the GSTC standard requirements.

Also, some criteria have the ‘not applicable’ option – check whether you

may tick ‘not applicable’ in the ‘Guidance’ tab.

4.1.2 Guidance

All criteria have an explanation and guidance for how to comply featured in the ‘Guidance’ tab. Consult

each Guidance explanation carefully before submitting an answer.

4.1.3 Remarks

Under the tab “Remarks” users can ask questions from the advisor/coach. This feature is used as an

active text box to communicate with one another (when logged in, your coach can see your

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assessment and comments). Here you can add notes, and coaches can make suggestions about

information that has been uploaded, or to further explain how the destination can improve on criteria.

Don’t forget to click the ‘save‘ buttons to store your comments. The save button with the exclamation

mark will indicate in the overview on the left-hand side of the screen that there is a new comment

with the respective criterion.

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4.1.4 Action Plan

Under the tab ‘Action Plan” the destination can add actions to meet the criterion or improve

performance. These tasks will make up the Action Plan (see also section 4.2).

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Moreover, users can suggest and review “Best practices” when filling in information.

Best Practices will be reviewed by the Green destinations Secretariat before they become visible to

other platform users.

4.2 My Action Plans There are two ways to make your action plan: adding new actions in the tab ‘Action Plan’ of each

criterion in the assessment; or by going in the left side menu of the Overview page to ‘Action Plan’

and clicking “settings” to add new task (see below)

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Once clicking here, you can add an action plan. By choosing a title, and using the text bar to add

comments on what the action plan will be/overview of the process. You can add a start and end date

when the action will begin and finish. Moreover, the number of hours before completion and the

budget needed.

This feature also allows you to review the version you are working on, create a new version and see

all versions in which you have worked on. By clicking “download” you can view a report of all the

criteria you have been working on.

4.3 Sustainability Report

With this feature reports from the assessment can be downloaded. Report settings allow you to

choose how you wish the report to be formatted. Whether you want to see all visible “0”’s in the

report for criteria, an explanation of criteria, etc. Here you are also allowed to add a report title and

short explanation of what it entails. Also, you can add information about your company, mission

statement, and sustainability policy.

4.4 Remarks Report This option gives you the

opportunity to make a PDF report

from the comments / remarks that

have been made by

coaches/auditors that have

assessed the destination at with

their comments/and to display

each indicator. You can adjust the

format yourself under report

settings.

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5. Assessment & Reporting - Green Destinations Indicator

Report* * This report may not be available (yet) to your destination

The Green Destinations Platform contains also a ‘Database of Quality Indicators’ for destination

sustainability, which can be consulted and – for selected indicators – edited by the destination.

Sources

Indicators come from the following types of sources:

1. External Databases (such as indexes for Human Rights, Press Freedom, environmental

performance etc from independent sources such as Transparency International, World Bank,

UNEP etc)

2. GIS maps of land cover in 2000, 2005, 2010 and 2015

3. Destination input and expert evaluation (rating 1-5 based on instructions)

4. Visitor Reviews on public websites such as Zoover and Tripadvisor

These External database names are shown in the Guidance of each externally sourced indicator.

Specifications of these databases can be found in Annex 1 of this guidance.

5.1 Accessing the Green Destinations Database of quality indicators There are 2 ways to access the Indicator Module in the online platform once logged in as Destination:

1) In the list of available reports, select the ‘Green Destinations Indicator Report’

2) In the drop-down box in the top-right side of the screen, select the ‘Green Destinations Indicator

Report’ option

5.2 The Indicator Report

The database indicator input is divided over 6 themes (make sure to toggle the ‘All subthemes shown’

button to see the subthemes).

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The first theme is factual geographic data, some if which is used to calculate the indicators in the next

5 themes.

In the next 5 themes, you will find the sustainability indicators. The indicators will show in green the

‘Value in database’ and the corresponding unit (e.g. km; km2; KWh; a rating 1-5, or an index.

5.3 The indicators Complete the indicator report with the following steps:

1. Select your destination’s attributes

Some destination-specific themes are shown only after submitting the first indicator of the list under

‘General Geographic Information’: Destination Attributes (click review to submit):

Select here if your destination has coast, bathing water or winter sports (urban destination will be

added soon). You can select and deselect. Click submit to save the attributes. This will show attribute-

dependent indicators in the rest of the report.

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2. Submitting and reviewing values

Key to complete the assessment of indicators is to look at ‘review’ buttons in the right-most column.

Submit your new or reviewed value and explain why. After submitting, an auditor will have to approve

before it becomes effective. Explanations submitted will be stored and included in the Sustainability

Report of the Indicator Report.

Pending submitted reviewed values are indicated with the hourglass icon:

If an auditor rejects, a red cross will appear.

3. Numbering and searching

Because of the dynamic presentation of attribute-dependent indicators, and since we may add

indicators from time to time as we’re improving the database, the automatic numbering (first column)

will remain changeable. Therefore, a column with our unique Ext. IDs (1) is shown (these won’t ever

change). You can search for this ID with the search box on top (2).

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4. Please note:

When submitting a reviewed/new value:

- Don’t use thousands separators (e.g. 100.000 inhabitants should be submitted as 100000)

- Use dots as decimal separators (e.g. not 4,2% but 4.2%)

- Use just a dash ‘-‘ to change a value into ‘no value’.

Once a reviewed value has been submitted, this will be notified on a weekly basis to the Secretariat

or the auditor(s) reviewing your report. They shall approve; approve with edit; or reject your

submitted value.

5.5 Indicators without a ‘Review’ button

Indicators without such a ‘Review’ button cannot be edited because for example:

They are calculated from a Geographical Information System (GIS); e.g protected

nature area within a 10km radius around the destination’s centre (coordinates).

N.B. Usually, in case of a radius calculation, the next indicator is a reviewable version of

this indicator, which can be completed based on real data e.g. from within the

destination’s planning department. As soon as this value is submitted and approved (by

an auditor); this value will over-rule the ‘radius’ value.

They take a national index from existing data sources (e.g. artisanal fishing or

corruption) this value applies to all destinations within the country

They are the result of calculations from other indicators (e.g. ratio shoreline length /

total land area).

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Annex 1: External database sources

OHI Ocean Health Index

EPI Environmental Performance Index

RaR Reefs at Risk

UNESCO World Heritage sites; World heritage In danger

Blue Flag Blue Flag beaches and Marinas

EEA European Environmental Agency

UNStats United Nations Statistics

WHO World Health Organisation

Numbeo Pollution

UNEP Air Quality

World Bank Air Quality

SSF Sustainable Society Index

EU Green Energy

Observ'ER Observatoire d’Energies Renouvables

Zoover Zoover rate

TripAdvisor Historica Buildings, Museums

TI Transparency International

WEF Global Gender Gap

VoI Visions of Humanity

RSF World Press Freedom

IHRRI Human Rights Index

NM NationMaster

FfP Fund for Peace

BD BookDifferent