Heather Bayer

In the latest sustainability report from Booking.com, a whopping 74% of respondents said they wanted to see more eco-friendly travel options. This is huge and means those operators who haven't been paying attention to sustainability issues should perhaps make this a focus going forward.

In this episode, I'm talking to Vanessa de Souza Lage, the founder of Sustonica, which is the first sustainability accreditation for vacation rentals. And she's going to be sharing how you can get onboard with not only saving money on energy and water costs and many other things, but also appealing to more guests.

Heather Bayer

This is the Vacation Rental Success Podcast, keeping you up-to-date with news, views, information, and resources in this rapidly changing short-term rental business. I'm your host, Heather Bayer, and with 25 years of experience in this industry, I'm making sure you know what's hot, what's not, what's new, and what will help make your business a success.

Heather Bayer

Well, hello and welcome to another episode of the Vacation Rental Success Podcast. This is your host, Heather Bayer, and as ever, super delighted to be back with you once again. I was really rubbish at math, maths, we call it maths in the UK, but math at school, and I hated statistics.

It was the title of it that just sent me cold. So I didn't pay much attention to it. But just recently, I've become fascinated with statistics, particularly when they relate to our short-term rental business. And in fact, I'm doing a session at the upcoming Book Direct Show in Barcelona on finding your niche. So I've been exploring mountains of stats from the fact that there are more pets in homes in Europe than children;. I found that really interesting. And that there is a $57.9 billion niche opportunity that we're mostly missing. That is really fascinating. To find out more, you've got to come to Barcelona to the Book Direct Show and check it out. I'm doing a full course, in fact, on finding your niche, which is going to be released in May. And all that information is going to be in that course because I think now we've become so competitive in this industry that if you don't have a niche[neesh] or niche[nitch], I have to be very careful. The Europeans call it niche and we call it niche here in the US. But if you haven't got one, you could just get lost amongst the gazillions of other properties and homes that are vying for our guests' attention.  So I'm into stats right now.

So the Booking.com survey on sustainability delivered that for me as well. And you'll have a link to that on the Show Notes, and I really encourage you to take a look. And I hope by the end of this episode, you're going to be really motivated to make some changes towards more eco-friendly policies and practices in your business, because these stats aren't lying. They are telling you what the respondents to the survey have said about their focus on sustainability and climate change and eco-friendliness.

So my guest today is Vanessa de Souza Lage. I love Vanessa. She's been on the show several times before. She's a vacation rental tech entrepreneur, and she is the founder of Sustonica, and this is the first sustainability accreditation for vacation rentals. This has been going on in the hotel industry for donkey's years, but we're only just tapping into it in our business right now. So in this episode, we're going to be discussing sustainability and eco-friendly travel in the vacation rental industry and how you, as vacation rental operators, can make your properties more eco-friendly, while also appealing to guests. And a lot of these things, as you're going to find out, are really easy to do.  Many, you're probably doing already.

So Vanessa is going to be sharing her insights on why sustainability is important, how Sustonica works, and how vacation rental operators can get a sustainability badge for their properties. So without further ado, let's dive into the conversation with Vanessa de Souza Lage.

Heather Bayer

Well, I am super delighted to have with me today, again, Vanessa de Souza Lage. And it's always an absolute pleasure to talk to you, Vanessa. We've met so many times at conferences and we've talked on the podcast. And so it's always a bonus for me to have your face on my screen.

Vanessa de Souza Lage

You're so kind. Thank you, Heather. Thanks for having me once again.

Heather Bayer

Not at all. For those of you who have not listened to previous podcasts or perhaps have not met Vanessa, I'm going to ask you to share your background in short-term rentals, because it is quite amazing. I also want to ask you what inspired you to go into your latest startup. You're like me, we just love to start new businesses.

Vanessa de Souza Lage

We do. We do. Always finding ideas of things that we're missing. I've been in the vacation rental industry for a very long time, I think it's 20 years now. I started off with building an OTA, previous to Airbnb, and we had at one point, which was a whopping 8,000 vacation rentals that you could book online, worldwide. But this is very early days. And so after that, when Booking.com came along and Airbnb came along with their millions of dollars, it was much harder to make the marketing work. And so we moved on from being an OTA to being a channel manager. The channel manager is Rentals United, and I spent seven years being the CMO there, co-founder and CMO, and I left in October '21 and then started to think about my next project and spent a year and a half researching what is now Sustonica. Now, Sustonica is the first sustainability validation accreditation badge for vacation renters. We don't have another one. And I have a special interest in sustainability; one, because I went to a boarding school when I was young, obviously, when I was a child.

Vanessa de Souza Lage

And back then, which is a long time ago again, the boarding school was very much a focus on sustainable living. So from a very early age, I was taught what it means to live in agreement with the environment, ‘friendly living', let's say. And so that carried on throughout my life. I've been influencing families and friends and making sustainable choices. I've been a vegan quite a long time, and yes, I've always been interested in sustainability. And so when my story was when Rentals United finished, I decided I wanted to combine being in vacation rentals and my love for sustainable living. And lucky for me, but sadly for the industry, there was no real approach, no pathway for us to become more sustainable. So this is how Sustonica was born.

Heather Bayer

So it's interesting you say that this is the very first one, because hotels have been doing this for a long time. And I remember going to hotels 20 years ago where you used a towel and you flung it out and they replaced it. Every single day you got new towels and often they would change the beds. And nowadays, they've gone through this period of training their guests, I guess, into greener practices. So now I go to a hotel, towels get reused and I don't expect somebody to come in and turn my bed down or change the bed every day. So we have been, I think, over the course of a period of time in hotels, we have been trained. First of all, why do you think the vacation rental industry has lagged behind for so long? And do you think that guests are trainable?

Vanessa de Souza Lage

I do think they're trainable. Absolutely, I do. There's been a lack of awareness in the vacation rental world and also lack of guidelines. At the VRMA last year – I wasn't there – but I was told there was not one panel about sustainability, not one. So we really lacked talking about it as an industry. We lacked the guidelines. I mean, the fact that we have very strong certification bodies for the hotel world. This has helped hotels in their past to become more eco-friendly, etc. And we haven't had that in the vacation rental world. So that's been missing. Also, there's a question of resources. There's limited resources we have as property managers, compared to the big hotel industry. And because it can cost a lot to get certified, it can cost like tens of thousands of dollars depending on the size of the hotel to get certified. And also I think has been guest expectations. In the past, very much before Airbnb really, vacation rentals were seen as a way to travel cheaply. They're cheaper than hotels because you go as a group, etc., so it was like a budget vacation. And this has completely changed, thanks to, I think, mainly Airbnb, who's really put this local experience and living like a local and has changed the perceptions of vacation rentals.

Vanessa de Souza Lage

So now there can be a wider focus on being more eco-friendly. COVID as well changed that. So guest expectations are changing. They do expect the same kind of things as they're seeing in hotels, this focus in vacation rentals too, and we haven't done it yet.

Heather Bayer

Well, it sounds like guests are actually looking for it as well. And I wanted to draw the audience's attention to the latest sustainability report from Booking.com.

Heather Bayer

Now, last year I talked with the Bob Garner of EnviroRental about the 2022 report, which had some great statistics. And as I said in the introduction, I'm really loving these statistics. And one of them was, it just jumped out, a whopping 74% of responders want to see more eco-friendly options. So these are the people who are going to vacation rentals. They are our clients, our customers, our guests, and they're asking for these things. So what opportunities does this create for managers and hosts?

Vanessa de Souza Lage

Yes. Well, firstly, competitive advantage. There are not very many property managers who have put sustainability as part of their brand pillars. Very few, in fact. And so by showing that you're taking this very seriously, you gain competitive advantage. And in very many markets, also first market, you'll be first to market that your properties are environmentally friendly. We can't really say you will have increased bookings at this stage because we don't have the stats. Booking.com, we have seen from the report, will not give us this. However, I think by the time we have the next report, this will come out that, yes, if you have an apartment, a similar apartment at the same price, similar amenities, let's say, in the same location. If one was sustainable and the other one was not, which one do you think the guest would choose? It's very likely that they would choose the one that has sustainable features. So for these reasons, I think we should jump on the wagon. Also, there's reduced cost saving by implementing energy saving appliances, for example, water saving measures. You do reduce on cost. So that makes a lot of sense for hosts, especially to look at how they run their homes.

Heather Bayer

Yes.  I think there is the thought that doing all these things is going to cost us money. We're going to have to spend money on changing out all our light bulbs, which you should have already done anyway. But we're going to implement new things that are going to cost us money. And I think it's really worthwhile looking at the other side of it, that it's actually going to save you money in the long-term. So if it's an initial cost, you're going to reap the benefits later, not only with that cost saving, but with, hopefully, more people booking.

Vanessa de Souza Lage

Yeah. I mean, there are very simple things that you can do that don't require investment. For example, one of the most important thing that you can do, and ranked really highly in our criteria, is to change your energy to 100% renewable. That is in most cases a phone call to your energy provider saying, I want to switch to 100% renewable, and that doesn't cost me more; it's a phone call. But there are very many things, and I think we lay them down quite clearly in the criteria on the website that you can do that don't  cost you any more.

Heather Bayer

Well, let's talk about those criteria. What's in the criteria? How are they created? I noticed on your website, you have this really nice little graphic, which is the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. So can you expand on that a little bit? And let's tell people what these different criteria are, and how they can meet those goals.

Vanessa de Souza Lage

Yeah, sure. So the United Nations have come up, after many years of research, with 17 sustainable development goals (STGs). And these are applicable for all sorts of businesses, not just tourism businesses, for business as a whole and for the world as a whole. When we developed the criteria for Sustonica, we obviously based it on these goals. They look at water conservation, energy conservation, waste reduction, and at ‘community'. So we can follow 10 out of these 17 goals. And it's very interesting to go through these 17 goals, I think, and to check out the United Nations website because they have really actual tips on what you can do to follow a more sustainable lifestyle. And as businesses, we have a responsibility. And especially in tourism, we create a lot of CO2, and people won't stop traveling, so we have to do our part. And so we were able to apply 10 of these goals to our criteria. And we also followed the S… sorry, so many abbreviations, the GSTC criteria, the Global Sustainable Tourism Council criteria, which manages to put a framework together for all tourism businesses, also based on the United Nations goals. So it all starts with the United Nations goals, and then you have these different bodies that look at how to enforce it for different industries.

Vanessa de Souza Lage

So tourism is the GSTC, and we now also have the travelist framework. But I don't want to go into too much details, but there are bodies looking at how we can reduce our impact in tourism. So yeah, that's what we're based on and there's about 40 criteria depending on the type of property that you have.

Heather Bayer

Let's take out one of these goals and break it down because I've done the test on your website and I found it quite fascinating because it breaks it down into very small achievable criteria. And it's just something simple like, do you provide reusable bags? Reusable shopping bags. Shopping bags, yes. Oh, gosh, I can tick that box because, yes, of course I provide.

Heather Bayer

I remember going years ago to a vacation rental in Exuma, I think. And as you do when you go into a new kitchen, you open every single drawer and I mean all, well I do, every drawer and every cabinet in a rental property. I've got to check everything out. I've just rented this place. So unless it's locked, I'm looking in it. And I remember there were three drawers in the kitchen and they were just….. and they were big drawers…. and they were all jam-packed with plastic bags, shopping bags.

Vanessa de Souza Lage

There you go. That's what we want to avoid. And I think it also gives, one, it's good for the guests that they see that you're doing this, you're providing shopping bags that they can take to the shop. But also by reading the criteria, you realize, okay, let me not forget my own shopping bag when I go out and go shopping. Because why take plastic bags? Many cities now forbid it, and hopefully this will be world-wide one day or another. But meanwhile, you take your shopping basket and you go shopping.

Heather Bayer

Let's take one of the goals and just lay out what those criteria are within that section.

Vanessa de Souza Lage

Okay. Which goal would you like?

Heather Bayer

No, I'm going to leave it to you to choose. I'm going to come back to the community one later on, because that's particularly interesting. Well, they're all interesting, but let's look at any one of them.

Vanessa de Souza Lage

Shall we look at water content?

Heather Bayer

Yes, for sure.

Vanessa de Souza Lage

Goal number 14. So for example, here we have, are your bed linens and towels eco-friendly? Not very many people have this today, I found out. Basically, your towels and your eco-linens should be made out of organic cotton, or linen, the material, or bamboo, and processed using environmentally friendly methods such as low impact dyes. So this will be one. Then do you offer green cleaning products? This is such an easy change to make. Every supermarket now will have green cleaning products on offer. And also if you're property manager, you can buy them in bulk and replace what you're currently using or what you're currently leaving for guests in the rental. Your shampoo and shower gel, are they free of microplastics? I know you had a look at the app yesterday.

Heather Bayer

Yes, that was fascinating. That was completely fascinating that you can get an app that will scan a barcode on a bath product and see if there's any microplastics in it.

Vanessa de Souza Lage

Yeah, it actually scans the ingredients. It doesn't scan the barcode, it scans the ingredients and it doesn't do it cleverly. And there you see if this shower gel or this shampoo has microplastics. It's irreversible what we're doing with microplastics. And the cosmetic industry is really very much at fault here for sticking microplastics in order to – because they're cheap – in order to fill the product. So if you can avoid them, avoid them. And what else do we have listed under water? We have… Oh, if you have a pool, swimming pool or a hot tub, is it being naturally filtered? So sand filters, bio filters, ozone generators, this is what we're looking at. In clean water and sanitation, which is related to water, goal number six, are your showers water efficient? And if they're not, then install a small valve that will cost you $5 in order to make it water efficient. Are you collecting rainwater? If you have a garden, rainwater collection method and use it to water your plants. These are all very simple things to do, very simple. It's just putting your mind to it. Obviously, we're looking at the washing machine, does it have an ‘Eco' setting?  Does the dishwasher have an ‘Eco' setting?  And things like, are the toilets water efficient? Do we have two buttons [dual flush] on the toilet? Things like this.

Heather Bayer

Yeah. Well, let's go to, in fact, the quiz or the test that people can access on the Sustonica website, because I'm hoping after this that everybody who's listening is going to go to the Sustonica website and take that test. Regardless of what you're going to do with it, go take the test, because I think it's quite an eye-opener.

Heather Bayer

Tell me about the criteria to actually achieve accreditation, because I was going through that and I'm thinking, No, I'm not achieving all of these, and it was almost like, Well, do I bother going on because I've left some blanks? Then I did see that you do not have to be 100% compliant with everything to get accredited. How much do you have to do?

Vanessa de Souza Lage

So in order to get the badge, we want to encourage people to start their sustainability journey. So we put the bar quite low. We put it to 20%. And there are very many easy things that you can do also in community, if you want to talk about it later, and things that property managers can do, things that owners can do. But we put it to 20% because we want people to start looking into this world and start thinking about making their homes more eco-friendly. And so the bar is low. But what we do require is that next year, when we pass it again, we will increase. We will increase at least a percentage. And that's what we're after. So you're starting your sustainability journey with us and you're starting to look at these things and now we ask you to increase it in a year. You have a year to make one more change.

Heather Bayer

That is brilliant because that was one of my questions. It doesn't appear to be that challenging to meet that 20%. And how are you going to encourage owners to go beyond that minimum? But you've just answered that. And I think that's a great step, because I'm assuming you're going to remind people beforehand?

Vanessa de Souza Lage

Of course, I will. Yes, isn't it?

Heather Bayer

My little brain, my startup brain is going, Oh, my gosh, I can see all these different ways you can motivate people to get going on this and make it exciting to get to the next level because we all love that. We do games all the time and there's that desire to get to the next level.

Vanessa de Souza Lage

But we don't have levels within the badge. We had them and we took them away. Why? Because people were competing. They were like, I don't want to get just the committed badge. I want the exceptional badge, and so I'm going to make some changes and come back to it. And we don't want that. We want you to start now and we want you to put your mind to it and get into this world and reaping all the benefits that it has to get into the world.

Heather Bayer

It's still motivating. Yes, I understand about levels, but it's just motivating to say, Okay, I got to 20% this year and when I redo the test, I'm going to get above that number, which is wonderful. Can you tell us about any… Share any stories you have about properties that have actually done this. They've achieved the recognition and what are they doing that's setting them apart?

Vanessa de Souza Lage

I have a wonderful example for you. One of our ambassadors in France, our first ambassador in France, who has 90 properties in the region of Annecy.

Heather Bayer

I didn't go to Annecy to the Vacation Rental….. to Antonio's Summit, unfortunately, but it looked gorgeous.

Vanessa de Souza Lage

Yeah, it is gorgeous. It's absolutely gorgeous. And in this region, she has 90 rentals. And she was our first, or she is our first, ambassador. And she did it for reasons that I thought were very interesting, mainly because she looks at her business, her property management business in the long-term. She's not in for the quick cash. She's in for the long-term. She wants to build a business that is resilient and that will survive anything that comes to it. So  one of the very important aspects of surviving is regulations, as you know, Heather. She needs to look to her local regulators, her local tourism board, the local government, as a good property manager. So she does everything in a good way. But on top of that, she wanted to show that not only does she have everything in a good way and pays her employees what they need to be paid and has licenses and all the rest. Also, she has a sustainability aspect. And so what she did, she passed the badge for, I think, about 50 of her properties and invited the local tourism board and the local mayor – the mayor! – to come and check out these properties and what they have in terms of sustainability.  And that was a huge success. They're completely on board. I think it's wonderful what she's doing. And so now she has another thing under her wing to say that she has a good business and she attracts good guests that are thinking sustainability and not about trash the place etc, literally. So yes, I think that's a really nice example.

Heather Bayer

Yeah, I love that idea of doing these things and then sharing it, waving your flag and saying, this is what I'm doing. Don't keep it under wraps. And I guess that goes to websites and having a page on your website that says this is what I do. And I know Bob Garner's website for Casal dei Fichi…. there's a huge focus on eco-friendliness/sustainability within that website. I'll put a link to that in the Show Notes too, because for anybody who's looking at starting this journey, then it's… Bob is such a great role model for this.

Vanessa de Souza Lage

Yes. He's been the first to talk about sustainability in our world. And the only until I arrived.  So now we're quite a few.

Heather Bayer

Yes. And Deborah Labi with the Greenpath Podcast now.

Vanessa de Souza Lage

And Nikki Mattei, who's a marketing specialist. And yes, I think that when many people are doing things already and they just fail to show it…. Oh, I do this, but I just haven't communicated it to anyone. And yes, knowing how to communicate and to show off. And with this, influence. I think this is the wonderful power that we have in the vacation rental world, because we have about 10 million vacation rentals – this number is accepted – that we have 10 million vacation rentals in the world. And it would be amazing if 10 million vacation rentals would run their business in a sustainable fashion. But on top of it, we get 450 million travelers that go through our homes every year. Every year! So if we can influence them to make a difference in their own way of living, then we have a real impact. We have a real positive impact on the world as property managers and as owners.

Heather Bayer

So taking that a little bit…. a little step further, so what incentives could property managers and owners use to encourage travelers to choose more eco-friendly options for travel? So really, this is the training aspect of it.

Vanessa de Souza Lage

I think OTAs here have a huge responsibility. And they're already doing things. They have eco-friendly filters, and they're offering carbon offsets and things like this. They're providing information. They have a big responsibility in bringing this out. And I think that we're bringing it out more and more. And quite honestly, where I think it's going with this is that, just like you can't advertise on an OTA here if you don't have a license number, you won't be able to advertise on an OTA here if you're not proving that you're doing things in a sustainable fashion. I think that's where we're going. So it will be enforced coming up. And in terms of property management today, I would really work on your website. If you think sustainability is important and it's important for your guests, which I'm telling you it is, it is important, then do the work on your own website. Do the work working on your About Us page. Point your home page to your About Us page. This is why you can trust us. This is why we're eco-friendly, etc. This work has to be done. Bringing out what it is in the home that makes it an eco-friendly option.  Working on your website, I think is the main thing that property managers can do.

Heather Bayer

Well, there was another statistic in the Booking.com survey that said 44% of travelers are unsure how to find more sustainable options for travel. So I guess that's showing that we're not being as visible with these things. But it's not just a tick in a box. You've got to take it the next step and shout it from the rooftops.

Vanessa de Souza Lage

There are some niche OTAs that focus on just that, but then they niche. And as you know, it's tough for the niche websites. Really, the OTAs have to make an even bigger effort than they're doing now. Booking.com is leading the way here and the others, they need to follow and faster.

Heather Bayer

I'm jumping about a bit here, but I want to come back to the criteria because this is the one that really interested me was about community because this is what everybody could do today just by sitting at your computer.

Vanessa de Souza Lage

That's right. Yes.

Heather Bayer

So tell me about the community criteria and what that means for people who are working on a website right now.

Vanessa de Souza Lage

Yeah. So the community criteria, so we're not just looking at…. sustainability is a very big topic. We're not just looking at the environmentally friendliness of your home, we're looking at how you promote the community, the destination, and how you support the community. So the examples that we gave earlier was in terms of water conservation. As a property manager, you might think, Well, I don't have access to this; I can't do this. And the owner has to take care of it. Our criteria, because it is thought for the industry, it's really looked at things that the owner can do and things that the property manager can do. So, in terms of the guidebook, we expect that you have a digital guidebook and that you work on it in order to promote things like locally sourced food stores, list of local vegetarian restaurants, list of organic food restaurants, list of local volunteering work, which I've seen very rarely in guidebooks, list of local heritage sites to make sure that these heritage sites do not die off, list of off the beaten path sites. And one of my favorites, it's not part of the guidebook actually, but it's part of the community support, and that is to showcase local artists.  So do you have art in your home? And do you say who this art is from and how the guest may purchase it, or at least visit the artist, visit the gallery, etc?

Heather Bayer

I love that one. I remember years ago going to a vacation rental in Sedona, and they had the most amazing pottery in there, but there was no real identification of where it came from. And I had to go back to the owner and say, Where did this come from? She said, Oh, yes, it's a local place in Sedona. And I thought, Why did you not share this? But it's as simple as that. People are looking around the place. They're seeing the nice touches you put in there. And if you're furnishing it and using local artisans to put things in there, just have a list. And I love that you said, if you haven't got the digital guidebook is a must. Yes, the days of the dog-eared welcome book on the table are really gone now.

Vanessa de Souza Lage

Hopefully. Like bringing your own linen and towels.

Heather Bayer

Yes. Same box.  Still happens in Ontario, you know?

Vanessa de Souza Lage

That's right. We're telling you, still a year later.

Heather Bayer

Still 20 years later since I said, No, we've got to stop doing this. And they said 20 years later, no they can bring their own sheets, I'm not using mine. So what else did I want to ask? Lots, I got so many questions. Yes, what are your future goals for Sustonica?

Vanessa de Souza Lage

Sustonica.  Well, we want to reach the 10 million vacation rentals for sure. This is what we're aiming at. I guess we have criteria now. We have three criteria for different types of properties. So, city apartments and townhouses, country homes, country homes with pool. So that's three. And since we launched, we have had requests from houseboats, from glamping properties, tree houses, camping sites, all sorts of businesses that do not have a badge, that do not have a way of showing that they are doing things the correct way. And so they've been approaching us. So my idea is that for now, we have three and we focus on these three and then we will grow. We will grow and we aim to touch more and more verticals within the vacation rental industry, basically.

Heather Bayer

Brilliant. So it just reminded me of something I was going to touch on when we were talking about community. And you said volunteers, and so I'm just stepping back a little bit, because I love that idea of promoting… Because volunteerism is yet another growing travel market, I guess. People want to go places and go volunteering. So if you're a property manager or an owner… And I'll give you one example. This is a lady I mention a lot on the podcast, and she's probably going to be shaking her head when I say Sherin McClellan again. She has a property called Western Star Bungalow in Kanab in Utah. And a lot of people have probably never heard of this. And it is close by a massive animal sanctuary called Best Friends Animal Sanctuary, which is one of the biggest animal sanctuaries in the US. And people come from all over the world to volunteer at this animal sanctuary. And so she promotes this on her website. Come up if you're volunteering, you can come stay here. And I've always loved that. And I've mentioned Sherin all the time in this context, because you don't hear much about anybody else promoting the volunteer aspect of a stay.

Vanessa de Souza Lage

And there's so much you can do in cities as well. There was a posting recently that they have been collecting plastics in Amsterdam from the river. And you spend the morning, you meet people and you leave, you've had a wonderful vacation, but you also leave feeling you've done something good. You've done something good for the local community. And so this is one we want to encourage. We want to encourage the property managers to actually go and look at all these options that they have and make sure that they share this with their guests.

Heather Bayer

Yeah, it takes me back to being… I spent my winter down in Gulf Shores, Alabama, and it was my first Christmas away from the family. First Christmas without the kids and I loved it.  We had steak and fries for Christmas dinner. It was fantastic and I didn't spend all day in the kitchen. I love my family. I love the 20 years we've had Christmas dinners with them. But it got me thinking, and I didn't think enough about it because I didn't find any information. And I thought, I'm going to be here at Christmas. What can I do? Can I go and find a shelter and go and volunteer and whatever? And, bad me, I didn't take it beyond that. I did a little bit of exploring online, but I couldn't find any opportunities. And that's simply because there isn't somebody out there saying, Here's all the volunteer opportunities for you.

Vanessa de Souza Lage

Yes, absolutely.

Vanessa de Souza Lage

Love that idea. So I'd like to hear from my audience who is doing this, who has volunteer opportunities on their websites. And if you haven't, why not go out and look? And it could be something as simple as you were saying, Vanessa, picking up garbage, joining an initiative to clear rubbish off a beach, something like that. If you're on a beach vacation, don't just go on to Facebook and complain about the garbage on the beach. Do something about it, and then you can let your guests know that they can do these things. So that is just such a great opportunity. So lastly, what advice do you have for property managers and owners who want to make their short-term rentals more sustainable, even if they haven't yet met the Sustonica criteria? What would they do?

Vanessa de Souza Lage

Well, I think studying the criteria will give them lots of advice. And then there's also a very good website, in fact, headed by Bob Gardner called EnviroRental.earth. And there is lots and lots of information about starting your sustainability journey. Very simple things, as I said, that you can do. So I would advise getting educated, really. And hopefully, I think Bob and I have really looked at making it easy, because it is a complicated world. It took me a year and a half to bring this out and to make sense out of it. I think we both really wanted it to be approachable. His website and ours, we clearly lay it out for everyone what they can do. So yeah, I would advise going on both.

Heather Bayer

Well, as I said, I did it. I went and took the test and was very happy with my results. I was actually looking at my own home, because I don't have a rental at the moment and I don't have a property management company anymore. But I would advocate everybody goes to Sustonica and checks it out and does that test. So for the accreditation, what's the cost, Vanessa?

Vanessa de Souza Lage

It's €40 per property and the process is all automated. So you register, if you're a property manager and there are certain things that you won't know about the property, so there will be a link that you can send the owner a very quick form that they can fill in to find out if they have renewable energy, for example, you might not be aware of that, or a heat pump. There's a very easy way to forward certain questions to the owner and the rest of the things you can do yourself as a property manager. The last step, this is two steps away, but the last step is that you need to go to the property and take photos for us, so the proofs that we're after and this is geo-located, so you can't cheat. With that we validate the information we get, and if you pass the 20%, you get your badge.

Heather Bayer

And what does the badge consist of?

Vanessa de Souza Lage

So the badge is….. you have an online space that you can chat, where you have the picture of your badge, that you can download as well. And you have a typed certificate page in A4 [European paper size] that you can print. And we very much encourage you to print it and put it in your vacation rentals to show your guests that you're taking it seriously. And that said, you can put it on your website and soon you'll be able to appear in some of the filters of the OTAs.

Heather Bayer

Okay, that is excellent. I'd love to hear from who has got their badge or is claiming their badge, and over time to find out if this is making a difference. Clearly, it's making a difference environmentally, but of course, we all want to get the other benefits as well. But of course, that comes from advertising what you're doing. Once you've got that badge, don't hide it at the bottom of your website. Make it front and center at the top on your home page and let us know how that goes.

Heather Bayer

Vanessa, it's been just a blast to talk to you. Can't wait to see you in Barcelona in a couple of weeks.

Vanessa de Souza Lage

Same for me.

Heather Bayer

Same for you. How is Barcelona, by the way?

Vanessa de Souza Lage

It's sunny and gorgeous.

Heather Bayer

Well, I'm quite sure it's going to be still sunny and gorgeous on the week of May the 15th.

Vanessa de Souza Lage

It will be sunny; even more sunny.

Heather Bayer

Even more sunny.  Okay.  Well, thank you so much for joining me. I wish you all the best with Sustonica. We will catch up again in a year or so and see where you're going. I know with the success of all your past ventures, this is going to be equally successful.

Vanessa de Souza Lage

Thank you, Heather. Thank you so much for having me.

Heather Bayer

Thank you,. Vanessa de Souza Lage, always an absolute pleasure. She is such a delight to talk to. Can't wait to get together in Barcelona in a couple of weeks. So I hope that has motivated you. I would love it if on the publication day, if everybody listening into this podcast goes to Sustonica and does that test, it only takes a few minutes and you will get back your percentage report that says by what percentage do you meet the criteria. And you can take it from there. I mean, there's absolutely no obligation to go on and do the accreditation, but it would be really useful to see how you stand out… sorry…. how you stand up to the criteria. I was pleasantly surprised with mine for my home, but I think I can do better. I got 60%, but I think I can actually do better. And we'll be spending a little bit more time looking at those criteria again. So let me know. I'd love to hear if you've done this, if you are accredited, what it's doing for you, and we can talk about that on a later show.

Heather Bayer

That's it.  As you can tell, I'm getting pretty excited about leaving Canada for a couple of weeks and heading to Europe. I just have one more person who is going to be at the Short Stay Week and the Book Direct Show and the Scale Rental Show and all the other things that are going on in Barcelona the week of May the 15th. I'll be talking to Neely Khan next week about storytelling. And Neely is an amazing storyteller, and she's going to tell us all about how we can use storytelling to boost our brands and make us seem more visible. And I'm already thinking about telling stories about what you're doing from an eco-friendly and sustainable perspective. There's a story for you. And certainly, Vanessa's story about the property manager in Annecy was really great. So all of us, we could all do something like this. So that is it for another week. As I came down to my studio this morning, it was just beginning to snow again outside. Come on guys, it's the end of April. So I'm hoping when I go up, the gray will have lifted, the snow will have stopped, and maybe we'll see a little bit of sunshine, which will be really, really nice.

Heather Bayer

Vanessa tells me it's absolutely beautiful in Barcelona, so what the heck? I can cope with gray for another few weeks before I get to Spain. Thank you so much for listening as ever, and I will see you again next week.

Heather Bayer

It's been a pleasure as ever being with you. If there's anything you'd like to comment on, then join the conversation on the show notes for the episode at vacationrentalformula.com. We'd love to hear from you. I look forward to being with you again next week.