10% off your next stay!
Join the Saintlo adventure and enjoy 10% off your next stay in Montreal and Ottawa.
Sustainable Development Policy of Auberges Saintlo
Introduction
Our mission at Auberges Saintlo is to create positive interactions between locals and people from around the world while fostering the discovery of our region.
As a non-profit organization actively engaged in the local community, our commitment to sustainable development is deeply rooted in our values of solidarity, responsibility, and social inclusion.
Youth hostels inherently have a reduced environmental impact compared to other types of accommodation due to their optimized infrastructures that encourage shared spaces. However, we aim to go even further by minimizing environmental impacts and maximizing social impacts across all our practices, strategic decisions, and development.
This sustainable development policy formalizes our commitment.
Definitions
Sustainable Development
Sustainable development is development “that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. Sustainable development is based on a long-term vision that integrates the inseparable environmental, social, and economic dimensions of development activities.” (Sustainable Development Act of Quebec, 2006).
Equity
Equity is synonymous with justice. An equitable approach promotes fair conditions that allow everyone to fully participate in society, recognizing that not everyone has had access to the same resources, opportunities, and benefits throughout their lives.
Regenerative Tourism
Regenerative tourism aims to regenerate the vitality of places, local populations, businesses, communities, and the complex ecosystems that sustain them. It enables each host community to develop its own character, fostering a warm welcome to both neighbours and visitors, even beyond differences and conflicts, and working together to regenerate surrounding ecosystems. This approach leads to new innovative projects and develops resilience for future disruptions. Every place becomes a home, for residents and temporarily for visitors. (Source: Destination Canada, “A Regenerative Approach to Tourism in Canada”).
Socio-Ecological Transition
The concept of socio-ecological transition emerged from a citizen movement in England, initiated by agronomist Rob Hopkins. It’s a process of societal transformation initiated by citizens, associations, businesses, and all sectors of civil society (an upward logic, as opposed to a top-down approach from governments). This process involves renewing how we consume, produce, work, urbanize, move, and more, aiming to address environmental and social challenges, articulating the fight against poverty alongside efforts for the climate, biodiversity, resource preservation, and well-being. Socio-ecological transition is built through local experimentation, based on social ties and often forms of collaborative economy. (Source: Socio-ecological transition | Praxis Note).
Guiding Principles
At Auberges Saintlo, we commit to aligning with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and integrating the following principles into all our decisions and operations.
- Environmental Protection: Dedicated to protecting the climate and natural environment, we strive to reduce our environmental impacts across all our operations.
- Awareness and Mobilization: We view every interaction with our customers and business partners as an opportunity to raise awareness about sustainable development.
- Partnership and Collaboration in Sustainable Development Initiatives: Beyond competition, we collaborate with various tourism, governmental, and academic actors to stay at the forefront of sustainable development projects, pooling our efforts to ensure their success.
- Promotion of Local Culture: We support cultural, economic, and civic initiatives that enrich our region, creating bridges between our clientele and the community.
- Simplicity and Sharing: We oppose overconsumption, advocating for a simpler lifestyle and a responsible approach to travel that emphasizes resource sharing.
- Diversity and Inclusion: We encourage diversity, inclusion, and solidarity across all areas of our operations.
- Decision-making Transparency: We consider transparency a key principle for communicating, raising awareness, empowering, and encouraging our employees and business partners to adopt sustainable practices.
- Health and Quality of Life: The protection of health and quality of life for our employees is a core priority.
- Creativity and Innovation: We rely on the creativity and innovation of all our employees to advance sustainable development actions in our hostels, providing the necessary resources to support them.
Vision
We aspire for Auberges Saintlo to be recognized as the accommodation choice with one of the lowest environmental footprints in our region.
By choosing to stay at our hostels, our guests will have the opportunity to experience a stay that positively shapes their perception of the world and travel. They will discover a lifestyle that integrates the principles of socio-ecological transition, emphasizing a slower pace of life, collaboration, local anchoring, and responsible travel, all moving toward a zero-waste future.
To contribute to a strong local economy, we will prioritize local and collaborative purchasing and strive to make our hostels spaces conducive to the emergence or support of community and civic initiatives.
Additionally, our hostels will be adapted to a world facing significant climate-related challenges. Our employees will be empowered to contribute to Saintlo’s social, economic, and environmental commitments through governance structures that foster participation and personal growth.
Finally, we will support the Saintlo Collective by highlighting the initiatives of each member establishment and sharing resources when necessary. This will help showcase the youth hostel model in the broader tourism industry as a form of responsible, supportive, and equitable travel.
Commitments
To make this vision a reality, we have adopted four key commitments:
COMMITMENT 1: AUBERGES SAINTLO ARE RECOGNIZED AS THE ACCOMMODATION CHOICE WITH ONE OF THE LOWEST ENVIRONMENTAL FOOTPRINTS.
We commit to minimizing the environmental footprint of all our activities.
Work areas:
- Reduce the carbon and water footprints of our buildings.
- Reduce the environmental impact of our purchases while maximizing social impact.
- Measure and reduce our overall carbon footprint.
COMMITMENT 2: OUR HOSTELS CREATE A POSITIVE LOCAL ECONOMIC IMPACT.
We commit to engaging more actively in local life and contributing to a strong local economy by supporting initiatives with a positive impact on the community. We also commit to enhancing collaboration between member hostels of the Saintlo Collective, so that each can implement initiatives at its own scale.
Work areas:
- Create opportunities for interaction with the local community.
- Strengthen the exchange of practices between member hostels of the Saintlo Collective.
- Participate in circular economy initiatives or support alternative lifestyle projects.
- Continue the mission of the Saintlo Foundation.
COMMITMENT 3: OUR EMPLOYEES HAVE THE TOOLS TO ACHIEVE THEIR AMBITIONS.
We commit to providing and maintaining a professional environment that allows our employees to thrive and acquire skills relevant to evolving in a transitioning society. We also commit to exploring governance mechanisms that foster the emergence of employee-driven projects linked to our sustainable development objectives.
Work areas:
- Provide our employees with secure and motivating working conditions.
- Develop relevant skills for our teams.
- Revise our governance and communication methods to foster greater participation.
COMMITMENT 4: WE PARTICIPATE IN THE SLOW TOURISM AND REGENERATIVE TOURISM MOVEMENT AND CREATE A TRANSFORMATIVE EXPERIENCE FOR OUR GUESTS AND OUR ECOSYSTEM.
We commit to raising awareness among our guests about the environmental impacts of our actions and introducing them to new ways of living and traveling: a different relationship with time, material and energy sobriety, and sharing, are values we wish to pass on.
Work areas:
- Raise awareness among our guests about responsible living.
- Promote a new way of traveling with less environmental impact.
- Offer an experience rooted in local specifics and knowledge.
Implementation and Monitoring
The board of directors of Auberges Saintlo will ensure that its governance, strategies, and directions align with this policy.
To ensure proper implementation, all individuals working at Auberges Saintlo or joining our teams will be required to, at a minimum, read this policy.
The implementation of this policy will be supported by a sustainable development action plan, which will also include monitoring of the targets to be achieved.
A dedicated resource for the implementation of the sustainable development policy will assist the hostel management and their teams in their actions.
Internal evaluations of progress relative to the targets defined in the action plan will be conducted semi-annually using predetermined performance indicators. These evaluations will identify areas needing improvement and highlight actions that have yielded positive results. Evaluations will be documented, and an impact report will be included in the annual report of Auberges Saintlo, which will be published online on the Saintlo.ca website.
