Sustainability Policy

Belfast's Sustainability Journey

Over the past five years, Belfast has made remarkable progress as a sustainably tourism destination, earning a place among the top 10 cities on the Global Destination Sustainability Index. In 2020, the city launched its first Resilience Strategy and Climate Plan, setting an ambitious vision: ‘to transition to an inclusive, zero-emissions economy within a generation’. Recognising its key role in supporting this ambition, Visit Belfast—Belfast’s Destination Marketing Organisation (DMO)—partnered with Belfast City Council to develop a Sustainable Tourism Plan as part of the Resilience Strategy’s 30 transformational programmes. It was within this context that Visit Belfast introduced its first Sustainability Policy and Action Plan in 2021.

Under the 3-year Business Plan Rebuilding City Tourism 2021–2024, Visit Belfast worked collaboratively with Belfast City Council and industry partners to accelerate sustainable tourism performance across the destination. During this period, the city’s visitor economy re-emerged from the challenges of Covid-19 stronger, more dynamic, and with a renewed understanding of tourism’s potential to drive inclusive and sustainable growth.

In 2024, Visit Belfast unveiled its new three-year business plan, New Horizons 2024–2027, marking a bold evolution in strategic focus. The plan embraces a triple bottom line approach—giving equal weight to environmental, social, and economic outcomes. For the first time, Visit Belfast has introduced dedicated environmental and social impact KPIs alongside established economic metrics, reinforcing its commitment to more balanced and inclusive growth.

Through ongoing collaboration and commitment, Belfast’s tourism industry continues to lead by example, advancing sustainable best practices and strengthening the city’s reputation as a leading sustainable destination.

Our sustainability policy

Our 3-year business plan and the 10 commitments outlined in our Sustainability Policy define our sustainable and regenerative vision for tourism in Belfast.

Visit Belfast will work to:

Reduce the environmental impact of our business and look for better, greener and more sustainable ways of working
Build sustainability capacity within Visit Belfast and empower our employees
Support and improve employee health and wellbeing
Procure goods and services more sustainably
Champion sustainability within our industry – encouraging collaboration, catalysing innovation and improvement
Promote sustainable choices and experiences and positively influence the actions of visitors
Work with our B2B clients (event organisers, tour operators and cruise lines) to make sustainable business easy
Generate and manage year-round visitors to Belfast in a way which is sensitive to the environment and communities
Maximise the social and economic impacts of Visit Belfast’s activities – to deliver sustainable and inclusive growth
Promote and develop Belfast as an accessible, inclusive and welcoming destination for all

Download the policy

Our ten commitments are aligned to eight of the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals below:

Management, Delivery and Performance

We will ensure delivery on our commitments through the following process:

Agreeing an annual sustainable action plan as a key part of Visit Belfast’s business planning process with agreed targets and KPIs, to be approved by the Board with performance reports at least twice annually on progress.
Establishing a sustainability team within Visit Belfast to support delivery of the sustainable action plan and delivery on policy commitments.
Ensuring that all employees understand the policy, receive sustainability training as part of their role within Visit Belfast and are encouraged to be champions of sustainability across the organisation.
Publishing our sustainability policy on our website and communicating it with all key stakeholders, industry, clients, suppliers and residents.
Reviewing and updating our policy regularly to ensure continuous improvement of our sustainability efforts. Next update due September 2025.
Participate in the annual Global Destination Sustainability Index to measure sustainability performance at a destination level (environment, supplier, destination management and society).
Maintain our Green Tourism Gold Accreditation which measures sustainability performance at an organisation level (Visit Belfast).
Agree an annual DEI action plan in line with the Visit Belfast Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Policy.

This plan is underpinned by our sustainability strategy and sustainability policy which was approved by our Board in June 2021 and published. This was informed by consultation with Belfast City Council, Tourism NI, Our regional tourism partnerships, Belfast’s Sustainability and Resilience Board, NITA, NIHF, Eastside Partnership, Visit West Belfast and over 400 partner businesses and stakeholders. Our plans were launched at a Sustainable Belfast event in June 2021 and progress is annually reported at our business plan launch in May of each year. Sustainability and impact performance is regularly reported to our operational committee and Visit Belfast Board.

Measuring Progress, Sustainability & Impact

To ensure accountability and genuine impact, Visit Belfast rigorously tracks progress against our three-year business plan and the 10 sustainability commitments outlined in our Sustainability Policy. This approach allows us to demonstrate transparency, build trust with stakeholders, and ensure that our actions reflect our values—not just in principle, but in measurable outcomes

Read Visit Belfast’s Full Performance Report for 24/25