A sense of environmental stewardship has been at the core of Delaware North Companies Parks & Resorts from the beginning. Of the companies that bid in 1992 for the visitor services in Yosemite, the largest contract in the U.S. National Park Service, Delaware North was the only one willing to shoulder the financial and operational responsibility for rendering harmless a number of leaking, underground storage tanks put in place by a previous concessionaire.
Perhaps because we were new in the parks arena, we were awestruck by the beauty of Yosemite in much the same way as anyone who sees it for the first time inevitably is. And so, we were anything but casual about our role as the park’s concessionaire. A role that put us in a rare position to help safeguard this treasure that had been entrusted to us.
With Hospitality and Stewardship in Special Places as our mission, we set about to define for ourselves, our clients, our guests and even our competitors what “stewardship” could be all about.
It was in this spirit that Delaware North moved forward to develop a formal environmental management system called GreenPath® and in 1999, to accomplish something no other U.S. hospitality company had ever done: have its environmental management system registered to the standards put forth by the International Organization for Standardization.
Although we were proud to be charting a new environmental path for our national parks, the primary reason we pursued ISO registration was that we understood the organization’s strict standards would provide us with an important management tool. For one thing, ISO requires that all components of an active management system be reflected throughout the organization for effectiveness. ISO14001 is the international specification for environmental management systems (EMS). This organization specifies requirements for establishing an environmental policy, determining environmental aspects and impacts of products, activities, services, planning environmental objectives and measurable targets, implementation and operation of programs to meet objectives and targets, checking and corrective action, and management review.
GreenPath® is firmly in place at all of our locations and ISO 14001 registration is continually renewed through in-house and third-party audits.
Recent Accomplishments:
2008 – EcoStar Award – Yellowstone National Park (Waste Reduction)
2008- NPS presents Delaware North Companies Parks & Resorts with a 2008 Environmental Achievement Award in recognition of its recycling practices at Yellowstone and Yosemite National Parks
2008 - Department of the Interior presents Delaware North Companies Parks & Resorts with a 2008 Environmental Achievement Award Honorable Mention in recognition of its recycling practices at Yellowstone National Park and Yosemite National Park.
2007 – DNC Parks & Resorts received IMEX Green Meetings Award
2007 – Yellowstone National Park received EcoStar Award
2007 – Balsams received ISO 14001 registration
