About us

Why Järvsö 2025

We believe that..

We need to work faster in order to reach our sustainable development goals. Private sector in general plays a crucial role in this transformation.

Tourism in particular has the potential of being a powerful catalyst. Businesses need concrete goals and tools – it is hard to free up time for lofty discussions on strategies and innovation.

We – the Järvsö Green Team- want to contribute to this work and share our lessons on the road towards becoming Scandinavia’s first destination accredited according the GSTC (Global Sustainable Tourism Council) criteria.

Thus: Järvsö Summit. We want representatives from private sector, public officials and civil society to meet, discuss and find new solutions to our common challenges.

We want Järvsö to be the place where we meet, year after year, to share our success stories and fight for answers together.

Welcome

Why Järvsö?

Järvsö is the first GSTC-certified destination in Scandinavia, and the region of Gävleborg is Sweden’s fastest growing tourist district. The Järvsö Green Team Destination Management Office (with representatives from private sector, the municipality and civil society) has been working together successfully on centering sustainable tourism in local development plans. Tourism representatives from Järvsö are already stepping forward, showing leadership in everything ranging from biodiversity (Vildriket, formerly Järvzoo) to energy efficiency (improved snow production, Järvsöbacken). There are both cultural and biosphere world heritage sites in the municipality and it is easily accessible via trains and other modes of public transport.

Our contribution to sustainability

About Järvsö being GSTC-certificified:
Our destination is certified according to the Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC). We have chosen to do this for several reasons, the most important one is that by measuring ourselves within the different criterias we identify know where and how we need to improve and do our best to do it. We are audited annually by a third-party auditor, EarthCheck, so we maintain transparency and continue to learn and improve. The certification provides us with tools to do this work in a structured way. The criterias in the certification are based on the work by the Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC) which in turn is based on the UN Agenda 2030. We have set the goal high, only a few destinations globally meet the hard criterias of this international certification that deals with all three dimensions of the concept of sustainability; Environmental, economic and social/ethical sustainability. Read more about our and Ljusdal municipality’s joint work with the certification.

Our contribution to sustainability on a bigger level

The certication of Järvsö is done in a joint venture between the municipality of Ljusdal, our destination marketing company and JärvsöRådet, who represents our civil society. There is a steering group called the Green Team who are responsible for working with the certification. A problem that we have identified (as the rest of the world has) is that the green transformation is going to slow.

Within Green Team we have discussed how we can contribute to increase the speed and that is where the idea of having a summit focusing on sustainability within Tourism was born. We believe that to create change public offices, the industy as well as civil society have to co-operate. By creating a meeting space where we can discuss challenges and share best practices will help increase the speed of the transformation that is needed.

Our sustainable choice of food during the conference

The main goal when it comes to the selection of food to be served during the conference is to use the food products as much as possible from local producers from Hälsingland and when possible also seasonal products. Hope you will enjoy the fabolous taste of Hälsingland.

Our local partners for the conference

In addition to our local food producers, we have chosen to collaborate with local companies during Järvsö Sustainable Tourism Summit who in turn focus on sustainability. The collaboration includes everything from producing the badges made from local wood, locally built stage furniture to the buss transports being managed by a local company as well as venues who actively work with sustainability. Collaborating with and involving the local is one of our main goals with the conference and part of our work on sustainability whether it is the economic, social, environmental or spiritual dimension. Some aspect of sustainability is always represented by every company that collaborates with us during the conference. By no means are we perfect or finished, we keep on learning and improving. We believe one will never be finished – however the certification keeps this important work top of mind within our destination as we all realize the importance of it. If we all do our part we believe we can achieve the change that is needed for future generations.

Welcome to Järvsö!