Why DCVB Pursued Green Plus Certification?

DCVB is pleased to learn it is the first destination marketing organization in the nation and one of the first two dozen overall to earn Green Plus certification from the Institute for Sustainable Development.

Essentially, this is a rigorous process evaluating organizations for not just how they treat the planet but how they treat their people and how they perform overall. All three are needed to be truly sustainable.

There are many reasons DCVB is often the first to peruse achievements like this. Here are just a handful:

• Green is not new to DCVB. As early as 1990, soy-based inks and recycling were adopted right after start up as Durham’s official marketing agency in 1989.
  
  
• Green activism is a key part of the overarching Durham brand that DCVB as the community’s marketing agency must deploy.
  
  
• DCVB’s credo is “continuing and never-ending improvement.” Part of that is to embrace every new opportunity to excel.
  
  
• Exposure is important and it helped that Duke University and the Greater Durham Chamber of Commerce were early partners with the Institute to forge Green Plus although it has now rolled out in many states.
  
  
• A rigorous, independent evaluation like Green Plus is a way to learn where an organization can improve as much as how it is excelling, and DCVB has always embraced these opportunities.
  
  
• Green Plus certification is good marketing. As Durham’s marketing organization, it makes sense that DCVB should strive to epitomize the very brand values it promotes as part of the community’s personality and character.
  
  
• DCVB has 3,000 visitor related businesses and organizations as stakeholders and it can now set an example as well as mentor these small organizations through Green Plus.
  

Green Plus certification, as well as full accreditation to the best practices of community marketing plus more than 120+ other awards and recognitions earned in the past 10 years alone, also symbolize to the community that it can be assured DCVB strives for and achieves best practices and performs at the highest level possible.

And that it will never let up or stand down.