The Government of the Azores announced today on Pico the creation of the Myosotis award to reward the "good environmental behaviour" of regional tourist accommodations.

Myosotis, the name of an Azorean endemic plant commonly known as "Forget-me-not," will distinguish the environmental performance of tourist accommodations, starting from a basic environmental performance with one Myosotis flower to a level of excellence with five flowers.

Saving and preservation of natural resources, training and common information and dissemination are the three main pillars of this distinction, whose awarding is preceded by registration and respective technical inspection.

The process begins with the registration on the website of the Myosotis award, which will enable the committee to ascertain the level of management and best practices, with special emphasis on the areas of waste, water, energy, training, information and biodiversity.

This year, the application period runs until April 15; the inspection of establishments takes place between May 5 and 30 and distinctions will be awarded on June 15.

With the possibility of renewal every two years, the Myosotis award is divided into several phases that will run from June to December, except for 2012, allowing establishments to display the recognition for their environmental performance in the beginning of each new year.

Resource saving, use of common information materials produced for this purpose, internal training in the areas of environmental assessment, comprehensive dissemination and the possibility of gradual improvement according to interest are some of the advantages for the establishments  distinguished with this award.

With this initiative, the Government of the Azores, through the Regional Secretariats for the Environment and the Sea and the Economy, aims to create an environmentally credible and rigorous award to distinguish tourist accommodations as well as to raise the awareness of employees and tourists for good environmental practices.