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During the Sustainability Leadership Programme, we have explored the concept of sustainability, reflected on our data needs to achieve a stronger impact within the destination, discovered different communication strategies and analysed the value of applying co-design techniques. So, how does all of this come together?

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With this activity, the objective is to help you set your destination's sustainability strategy out while considering everything explored in the Programme. What do you want to achieve, where do barriers sit, how can you work to overcome them and where do those gems, champions and moments of genius lie?

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Are you ready to get started? You can complete this activity by downloading the template that you will find by clicking on the MURAL above or this PDF. 👀👇

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Exploring our Sustainability Strategy.pdf

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In the first part of the activity start by defining the subject of your sustainability strategy exploration. Then, focus on writing down its mission and vision to remind yourselves of what you want to achieve.

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1. The Starting Point

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In this part of the template, reflect on what your sustainability strategy is about. Precisely define the value and other dimensions that your strategy will signify for your destination.

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By being clear and precise in this first part of the activity, the development of your sustainability strategy will be much easier, allowing you to achieve better and more impactful results in the destination.

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2. Vision & Mission

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Now focus on what your goal is and why you are developing a sustainability strategy for the destination. By setting clear vision and mission statements for the whole development process, a stronger direction will be set.

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Remember that the vision should describe the achievable future state of the destination, while the mission should be a general statement of how you will achieve your vision.

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Additional Brainstorming: Mission & Vision

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We have previously explored the mission and vision of our destination's sustainability strategy, but if you still haven't developed them or would like to improve them you can use this additional resource, which will allow you to formulate them and transfer them to the main exploration area.

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The second part of the activity will require you to start exploring your sustainability strategy and the knowledge that you have acquired through the Programme.

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3. SLP & DMOs Analysis

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Start by mapping the world that surrounds you. Analyse what other DMOs around the world are doing in terms of developing their sustainability strategies. This will help you identify if there are any learnings that you could take from them before developing your strategy, allowing you to create a more robust one for your destination.

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Afterwards, reflect on the knowledge that the Sustainability Leadership Programme has given you. Think about the following covered topics to ensure that you take advantage of all of them when building your sustainability strategy:

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• Partnerships
• Diverse Empowered Team
• Circularity
• Sustainability
• Data
• Communication
• Design

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4. SWOT Analysis

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Time to move from observations to actions! In this step of completing the activity, conduct a proper SWOT analysis of the actions that you would like to take as part of your new sustainability strategy based on the things observed in step 3.

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By evaluating the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats that these present, you'll be able to draw relevant conclusions and build logical chains of action. This will bring you closer to your final objective: setting out your destination's sustainability strategy.

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The final phase of the activity is about identifying and prioritising strategic options and objectives.

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5. Big Steps: Strategic Options & Objectives

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This first part should help you to establish the potential steps that will bring you closer to the goals lined out in your vision. To determine these options and objectives, think of qualitative goals, measures and action fields that you could tackle based on the conclusions derived from the previous SWOT analysis.

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Once you've done this, it's time to prioritise the big steps. Decide which options should be considered for the final strategy and which ones should be ignored by classifying them into the three boxes provided (marked with a cross, a question mark and a tick).

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6. Formalising the Sustainability Strategy

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Now it's time to make decisions to create and pursue the direction that you wish your destination to take looking forward. You'll have to distil the essential steps from the Big Steps part into a concise strategy formulation that provides orientation.

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Start by writing the statements from the "Big Steps" in a reformulated and more aggregated way to help you set the right direction for your sustainability strategy. Once you have these statements, communicate the new strategy with your team briefly and concisely by using the following sentence structure:

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We can achieve (our vision) by doing X, Y, and Z (major measures or objectives that describe the chosen strategic path).

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In a very concise but comprehensible way, this will help you establish the overarching goal and the crucial steps you need to take in order to achieve it.

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After completing all these steps, you'll still need to lay out the strategic objectives in more detail to be able to implement them. This will allow you to also see whether the overall strategy is viable without making adjustments or if some will be necessary, requiring you to revise your Big Steps.

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Also, use this later stage to ask the rest of your team for their opinion on the proposed sustainability strategy for the destination. This retrospective will help you analyse the feasibility and comprehensiveness of the set plan.

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