The implementation of Directive (EU) 2024/825 marks the beginning of a new era for businesses and tourism destinations. Starting in September 2026, sustainability communication will need to be managed as an ongoing process based on transparency, verifiable evidence, and continuous improvement.
passed, the real challenge will be how to maintain sustainability communication over time in a way that is consistent, verifiable, and aligned with the reality of each organization.
Discover how to review your messaging, keep supporting evidence up to date, and strengthen trust in a landscape where communicating with rigor will be just as important as acting responsibly.
Over the past several years, months, and weeks, businesses and tourism destinations have devoted significant effort to preparing for Directive (EU) 2024/825, reviewing their environmental messaging, identifying potential communication risks, and strengthening the quality of the information they provide to consumers and travelers.
However, the implementation of the Directive does not mark the end of the process. Instead, it marks the beginning of a new era in which sustainability communication must become an integral part of the day-to-day management of any organization that seeks to communicate its environmental, social, and governance commitments with credibility.
As of September 27, 2026, the question will no longer be how to prepare for the new European framework. Instead, it will become a much more practical one.
The answer requires a shift in perspective. Sustainability can no longer be viewed as a set of messages that are reviewed only before launching a campaign or publishing a sustainability report. Instead, it must be managed as an ongoing process of review, updating, and continuous improvement—one that can respond quickly to new evidence, regulatory changes, audits, or requests for information from consumers, public authorities, business partners, and other stakeholders.
In this new landscape, transparency will no longer be viewed solely as a reputational asset. It will become an essential tool for building and maintaining trust.
One of the most common misconceptions during the transition to the Directive has been to view September 27, 2026, as the finish line. In reality, it marks the starting point.
Until now, many organizations have focused on reviewing their messaging, identifying potentially problematic environmental claims, updating digital content, reorganizing documentation, and strengthening the traceability of their supporting evidence.
All of these efforts will continue to be important. However, once the new framework is fully in effect, the priority will shift. The challenge will no longer be simply to have adapted communications before the compliance deadline. It will be to keep them continuously up to date.
This means recognizing that every sustainability-related message must be supported by an internal review process. At a minimum, every environmental claim should be able to answer four fundamental questions:
Answering these questions systematically will help reduce risk and strengthen the trust of those who rely on the information.
Responsible communication will no longer depend solely on the marketing or communications department. It will become an integral part of the organization's governance.
One of the most significant changes introduced by this new landscape is the recognition that supporting evidence is not static. It evolves along with the organization.
A renewed certification, a recent audit, a new performance indicator, a newly implemented initiative, or an operational improvement, all strengthen an organization's ability to communicate its sustainability commitments with greater accuracy.
Likewise, outdated information can weaken a message that was once accurate.
Any of these situations can create inconsistencies between reality and communication. For this reason, organizations are encouraged to work with what could be described as living evidence.
In other words, information that not only supports a claim at the time it is published but also remains organized, accessible, and ready to be updated whenever necessary.
Managing sustainability in this way provides a dual benefit. On the one hand, it enables organizations to respond quickly to requests for information. On the other, it ensures that their communications accurately reflect the organization's ongoing progress and evolution.
For many years, organizations have often treated environmental communication as a series of individual campaigns.
They would prepare a report, announce a new initiative, promote a certification, and then, in many cases, their communications would remain largely unchanged until the next major milestone.
That approach is becoming increasingly outdated in a landscape where information is constantly evolving. New projects, new initiatives, new audits, new objectives, and new commitments all require communications that evolve at the same pace as the organization itself.
In this environment, document management, the traceability of supporting evidence, and cross-departmental coordination become strategic priorities.
This is where sustainability communication shifts from being viewed as a finished product to becoming an ongoing process of continuous updating.
This evolution should not be seen solely as a response to regulatory requirements. It also represents an opportunity to build more transparent organizations, strengthen trust, and improve the quality of the information provided to consumers, travelers, customers, investors, and public authorities.
There is a common misconception that once an organization's communications have been brought into compliance with the new regulatory framework, the risks disappear. In reality, the opposite is true.
The implementation of Directive (EU) 2024/825 marks the beginning of a new landscape in which sustainability communications must remain continuously aligned with the organization's actual practices.
Sustainability is a dynamic process. Commitments evolve, certifications are renewed, performance indicators change, projects progress, and strategic priorities are updated. As these changes occur, communications must evolve as well.
This is essential because when information is no longer reviewed regularly, the likelihood of inconsistencies emerging between the organization's actual practices and the messages received by consumers, travelers, customers, or business partners increases. This does not necessarily mean that the communications are misleading. In many cases, information simply becomes outdated, reducing its ability to inspire confidence and trust.
For this reason, managing sustainability communications is no longer a one-time exercise. It becomes an ongoing process of monitoring and oversight.
Although every organization has its own characteristics, certain situations tend to occur repeatedly when there is no structured review process in place.
1. Information That Is No Longer Up to Date
One of the most common risks is continuing to publish information that was accurate when it was first released but no longer reflects the organization's current situation.
Regularly updating this information is essential to maintaining credibility.
2. Supporting Evidence That Is Difficult to Locate
The problem is not always the absence of supporting evidence. In many cases, organizations have the necessary information, but it remains scattered across different departments, documents, or platforms.
When a request for information or an audit arises, locating that documentation can become a slow and complex process. Centralizing supporting evidence and keeping it well organized enables organizations to respond more quickly and strengthens transparency.
3. Inconsistent Messaging Across Communication Channels
Today, organizations communicate through multiple channels simultaneously.
Without proper coordination, the same commitment may be described differently depending on the communication channel. Maintaining consistent messaging across all channels helps reduce this risk and presents a more coherent image of the organization.
4. Certifications and Recognitions That Are Not Kept Up to Date
Sustainability recognitions, such as Biosphere certification, are valuable tools for communicating an organization's commitment to sustainability. However, they also require proper management.
Organizations should periodically review all references to certifications, audits, and recognitions to ensure they remain valid, accurately reflect their scope, and are supported by up-to-date documentation. Transparency also means communicating the meaning and scope of each recognition with accuracy.
5. Internal Changes That Are Not Reflected in Communications
Organizations are constantly evolving.
In many cases, these developments remain internal for months before they are reflected in external communications. Reducing this gap helps ensure that the organization's public image more accurately reflects its current reality.
Not every organization needs a complex system. In many cases, establishing a simple procedure for periodically reviewing key sustainability-related messages is sufficient.
A basic protocol can be built around five key questions.
What Are We Communicating?
It is advisable to create an inventory of all sustainability-related messages across the organization's various communication channels. This comprehensive overview makes it easier to identify duplicate messages, inconsistencies, or outdated content.
What Evidence Supports Each Claim?
Every message should be linked to verifiable supporting evidence. This may include performance indicators, reports, audits, certifications, internal records, or any other documentation that substantiates the information being communicated.
Who Is Responsible for Maintaining This Information?
Assigning clear responsibilities helps prevent content from remaining outdated for extended periods. Every message should have a clearly designated owner responsible for keeping it up to date.
When Should It Be Reviewed?
Not all content needs to be updated with the same frequency.
The key is to establish a review schedule tailored to each type of information.
ow Will We Respond When Circumstances Change?
Every organization should establish in advance a clear process for updating or removing a message when it no longer reflects the organization's current reality. Anticipating these situations makes it easier to respond quickly and helps reduce potential communication risks.
One of the key lessons of recent years is that sustainability communication can no longer depend solely on the communications department. The quality of the information depends on collaboration across multiple areas of the organization.
Each department generates valuable information that can later serve as supporting evidence for the organization's sustainability commitments.
When this collaboration functions effectively, communications become stronger, more accurate, and much easier to keep up to date. Conversely, when departments operate in isolation, the risk of inconsistencies, duplication, and messages that are difficult to substantiate increases.
Although specific requirements may vary depending on the type of organization, businesses, tourism destinations, and organizations across all sectors share a common reality.
All of them must be able to demonstrate that the sustainability information they communicate is based on real, measurable actions supported by verifiable evidence.
Transparency is no longer solely a matter of reputation. It has become an essential component of effective management.
In this context, sustainability communication no longer depends exclusively on the work of a single department. It becomes a cross-functional responsibility that involves the entire organization.
Strategic decisions, environmental initiatives, social management, responsible procurement, employee training, supplier relationships, and community engagement initiatives can all provide valuable information for communicating an organization's sustainability commitments.
For this reason, having a methodology that helps organize this information, keep it up to date, and connect it to specific objectives is becoming an increasingly important advantage.
In the business world, sustainability has evolved from a complementary consideration into an integral part of business strategy.
An increasing number of organizations are publishing sustainability reports, incorporating ESG metrics, participating in certification programs, and implementing specific plans to reduce their environmental and social impacts.
However, many still face challenges when it comes to turning all of that information into communication that is clear, consistent, and verifiable. The primary challenge is rarely a lack of action.
More often, the difficulty lies in the absence of a system that can organize supporting evidence, keep it up to date, and transform it into meaningful information for communication purposes.
When management and communication evolve together, organizations are better equipped to respond to audits, requests for information, customer questionnaires, and procurement processes in which sustainability is becoming an increasingly important consideration.
In addition, this approach improves internal coordination, reduces duplication of effort, and strengthens the trust of all stakeholders.
Tourism destinations—particularly the destination management organizations and other entities responsible for managing tourism within a region—face an additional challenge.
Sustainability does not depend solely on the public authority or organization responsible for tourism management. Businesses, industry associations, cultural organizations, public institutions, residents, and visitors all play a role.
Communicating a destination's sustainability therefore requires coordinating information from a wide range of stakeholders.
This calls for strong governance, shared criteria, and mechanisms that make it possible to collect, update, and verify the initiatives carried out across the destination.
An additional consideration is particularly important. Destinations must also pay close attention to how affiliated businesses, tourism establishments, and partner organizations use sustainability-related certifications, labels, and messaging.
Promoting consistent communication across all destination stakeholders helps strengthen trust and project a stronger, more cohesive image.
A destination's sustainability is built collectively. Its communication should be as well.
Responding to this new landscape requires much more than periodically reviewing published messages. Organizations need a system that integrates sustainability into their day-to-day management.
The Biosphere methodology, developed by the Responsible Tourism Institute (RTI), is implemented through Biosphere Certification in accordance with the Biosphere certification scheme.
This system enables businesses, organizations, and entities responsible for destination management to organize their sustainability commitments, document supporting evidence, monitor their progress, and communicate their performance in a clearer, more traceable, and more verifiable way.
In this context, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) should be understood as a methodological reference framework that helps align sustainability requirements and initiatives with internationally recognized objectives, together with other international frameworks applicable to tourism and sustainability. This alignment does not imply endorsement by the United Nations, nor does it constitute a certification of SDG compliance. Rather, it helps organizations structure their commitments, demonstrate progress, and connect the management of businesses, organizations, and destinations through a common sustainability framework.
From this perspective, Biosphere should not be viewed solely as a communication tool, but as a management tool that helps organizations organize information, keep supporting evidence up to date, and communicate progress in a clearer, more proportionate, and more verifiable manner.
Building on this foundation, each organization can define objectives, record initiatives, incorporate performance indicators, document supporting evidence, and continuously monitor its progress.
This approach ensures that the information used to communicate sustainability is drawn directly from the organization's own management processes. As a result, sustainability communication is no longer based solely on broad statements, but on documented and verifiable actions.
One of the greatest advantages of a structured methodology is that it enables supporting evidence to evolve alongside the organization. Every new initiative, audit, certification, operational improvement, and updated performance indicator becomes part of an organized system that can later be used to support sustainability communications.
In this way, supporting evidence remains current. It is not simply archived after an audit or used only for the preparation of an annual report. Instead, it becomes an ongoing resource that enables organizations to respond quickly to new regulatory requirements, requests for information, and evolving communication needs. This approach provides greater confidence, reduces risk, and strengthens the organization's credibility.
One of the most significant changes introduced by this new landscape is that sustainability is no longer viewed as a one-time compliance obligation. Instead, it becomes an integral part of an organization's culture.
Transparency is no longer simply a response to regulatory requirements. It becomes a way of managing the organization.
When an organization embraces continuous review, documents supporting evidence, and keeps its information consistently up to date, its sustainability communications become stronger, more consistent, and better equipped to build trust.
This evolution benefits both businesses and tourism destinations.
Not only because it helps them meet new regulatory requirements, but also because it strengthens relationships with customers, travelers, public authorities, investors, and society as a whole.
The implementation of Directive (EU) 2024/825 marks a turning point in the way businesses and tourism destinations communicate their environmental commitments. However, its true impact extends well beyond the regulatory sphere.
We are witnessing a much broader shift in which consumers, travelers, public authorities, investors, and other stakeholders are demanding information that is increasingly transparent, accurate, and verifiable. Sustainability is no longer communicated as a collection of isolated initiatives. Instead, it becomes part of a continuous process of management, review, and improvement.
This means that trust will no longer depend solely on the actions an organization takes. It will also depend on its ability to explain those actions clearly, support them with verifiable evidence, and keep the information up to date as circumstances evolve.
In this new landscape, responsible sustainability communication becomes a natural extension of good management.
The new European regulatory landscape presents an opportunity for businesses and tourism destinations to strengthen their organizational culture. Beyond legal compliance, it encourages organizations to rethink how sustainability-related information is generated, organized, and shared.
Organizations that establish consistent processes for reviewing, documenting, and updating information will be better prepared to navigate audits, respond to requests for information, and maintain trusted relationships with their various stakeholders.
Transparency is no longer viewed simply as a compliance requirement. It becomes a competitive advantage. Because an organization that understands its impacts, measures its progress, and can demonstrate its commitments also has a much stronger foundation for communicating its contribution to sustainable development.
The implementation of Directive (EU) 2024/825 marks the beginning of a new era in sustainability communication management.
To help businesses, tourism destinations, and organizations across all sectors navigate this new landscape, Biosphere Responsible Tourism will host a specialized webinar exploring the key challenges and opportunities presented by this evolving environment.
During the session, we will cover topics such as:
Once the first few weeks following the implementation of the Directive have passed, it will be especially valuable to examine, from a practical and realistic perspective, the initial challenges that businesses, destinations, and organizations have encountered in this new sustainability communication landscape. This review will help identify common questions, operational challenges, and early lessons learned during a period in which sustainability communication will increasingly rely on evidence, transparency, and continuous updates.
We will share the webinar date and time soon. Attendance will be free of charge, and no prior registration will be required.
This article concludes The New Era of Sustainability Communication, an editorial series by Biosphere Responsible Tourism that has explored how sustainability communication is evolving in a context shaped by increasing demands for transparency, the implementation of Directive (EU) 2024/825, and the growing need to support every commitment with verifiable evidence.
This final chapter not only examines the post-September 2026 landscape, but also brings together the key ideas developed throughout the series, completing a journey designed to help businesses and tourism destinations understand how sustainability communication is changing as transparency, credibility, and continuous improvement become increasingly central.
Throughout this series, we have explored eight complementary perspectives to help businesses and destinations prepare for this new era:
Together, these eight articles form a practical guide to understanding how to integrate sustainability into day-to-day management and communicate it with greater credibility, consistency, and trust.
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Because, beyond the specific characteristics of each organization, there is a shared reality. Sustainability is no longer defined solely by the actions a business or destination takes, but also by its ability to demonstrate that progress in a clear, verifiable, and continuously updated manner.
The implementation of Directive (EU) 2024/825 is accelerating a transformation that goes far beyond regulatory compliance and is shaping a new way of approaching sustainability communication. Transparency, the traceability of information, and the ability to support every message with verifiable evidence are no longer distinguishing features—they are becoming the foundation of responsible sustainability communication.
Although this new regulatory framework originates within the European Union, the trend it represents extends far beyond its borders. Consumers, travelers, tour operators, commercial platforms, investors, and public authorities around the world are demanding increasingly clear, accurate, and verifiable information about organizations' sustainability commitments.
Preparing for this new landscape means much more than complying with European regulation. It means anticipating a global transformation in which trust will increasingly depend on an organization's ability to demonstrate its commitments, communicate its progress with transparency, and maintain communications that are rigorous, proportionate, and supported by verifiable evidence.
Organizations that embrace this way of working will not only be better prepared to meet new regulatory requirements and the growing expectations of their stakeholders. They will also strengthen the quality of their management, improve decision-making, and build stronger, longer-lasting relationships with customers, travelers, investors, public authorities, and society as a whole.
The real challenge is no longer simply to communicate sustainability.
It is to manage sustainability in a way that allows it to be communicated with transparency, consistency, and credibility.
That will likely be one of the defining characteristics of the organizations that lead the transition toward more responsible models of development in the years ahead.
And finally, we would like to leave you with one essential idea. The future of sustainability communication will not belong to the organizations that communicate the most, but to those that are best able to demonstrate what they communicate.