Horizontes Receives Sustainability Award

Ecotourism company Horizontes Nature Tours will be among the honorees in New York City May 17, when nonprofit group Rainforest Alliance hosts a sustainable business conference.

According to a statement from the alliance, Horizontes will receive the Corporate Green Globe Award along with three coffee-related companies:

ECOM/Atlantic, a U.S.-based coffee-roasting company; the National Federation of Coffee Growers of Colombia, which owns the Juan Valdez trademark; and Japan’s coffee leader, Ueshima Coffee Company, Ltd.

Other honorees include Grupo Roda, a conglomerate of Bolivian forestry companies; Pictorial Offset Corporation, a graphic arts supplier; El Salvador’s Wild Forest Coffee; and wildlife photographer Art Wolfe.

Horizontes, founded in 1984, promotes ecotourism by encouraging travelers to visit national parks. The company also sponsors, with the Rainforest Alliance, workshops on sustainable tourism, and then encourages clients to stay at hotels that participated in the workshops.

Horizontes also offers seminars on conservation and biological sciences, and donates funds for national park guards, trail building, research stations and conservation organizations, the statement said.

At the New York “expert conference and celebrity-attended gala,” with events at the headquarters of Goldman Sachs and the American Museum of Natural History, participants will discuss sustainable certification for products.

The Rainforest Alliance sets and verifies compliance with independent standards for sustainability certificates for bananas, timber, cocoa and coffee, among other products, and promotes sustainable tourism.