GDS-Index 2025: Helsinki tops again; Adelaide most improved

The Global Destination Sustainability Index (GDS-Index) unveils its 2025 Top 40 rankings, marking a decade of pioneering destination sustainability benchmarking. 

 

This year’s theme, Shifting Tides, reflects a period of global transition during which destinations demonstrate remarkable resilience and accelerated action.

 

The 2025 GDS-Index celebrates ten years of progress, revealing a 31% increase in average performance across all participating destinations since the programme began, with a remarkable 46% rise in the Top 10’s performance.

 

In a year still shaped by economic uncertainty, destinations have had to practise resilience to maintain momentum.

 

The 2025 Leadership Destination: Helsinki

 

For the second year running, Helsinki leads the GDS-Index with a score of 93.52%, cementing its role as a sustainable and regenerative tourism and events leader.

 

The city's path includes ending its coal era for good and becoming the first major European capital to earn a Green Destinations certification.

 

This commitment extends to visitors, with near-universal sustainability certification across its tourism infrastructure: 99% of hotel rooms (in properties with more than 50 rooms), 100% of convention centres, and 80% of top attractions are now third-party certified. Underpinning this is a robust climate action plan for tourism that focuses on measuring emissions and preparing for future risks.

 

Nina Vesterinen, Tourism Director, City of Helsinki, said: “We are so happy with this result because Helsinki invests substantially in sustainable development, and this recognition reaffirms our right direction.”

 

The 2025 Top 3 Leadership Destinations:

 

1.Helsinki, Finland (93.52%)

2.Gothenburg, Sweden (91.51%)

3.Copenhagen, Denmark (88.76%)

 

The Nordic trio continues to dominate, but the leaderboard is tightening. The gap between the Top 10 and the overall GDS-Index average has narrowed significantly, decreasing from 23.2% to 20.3%, indicating an encouraging rise in overall performance worldwide.

 

The Most Improved Destination: Adelaide

 

Adelaide achieved the greatest improvement overall, soaring 23 places in the rankings in just its second year of participation.

 

This dramatic rise was fuelled by its ambitious Integrated Climate Strategy 2030 and the launch of its first sustainability roadmap.

 

The city demonstrated exceptional environmental leadership, and made landmark progress in its supply chain, notably with Adelaide Airport becoming the first in Australia to achieve carbon neutrality for its direct emissions. 

 

Damien Kitto, Chief Executive Officer, Business Events Adelaide commented: “We are delighted that Adelaide has been recognised as the Most Improved Destination in only our second year of participation. Our aim in 2024 was to understand how Adelaide compared with other destinations, and it is fantastic to see such a significant improvement in such a short time.” 

 

Kitto added: "Adelaide has a great sustainability story to tell, being a city in a park with easy, walkable accessibility. GDS-Movement provides a stamp of approval to validate our initiatives.It enables us to present Adelaide as a clean and green destination with confidence, and we are grateful to our Team Adelaide partners for their support in helping us to achieve this award.”

 

The 2025 Top 3 Most Improved Destinations:

 

1.Adelaide, Australia 

2.Krakow, Poland 

3.The Malverns, UK

 

Key Insights from the 2025 Data:

 

A Dynamic Top 40: The 2025 GDS-Index Top 40 is more dynamic and competitive than ever. Nine new destinations entered the rankings. The leaderboard has also tightened significantly, with the gap between the top and bottom spots narrowing, indicating that the standard for destination sustainability is rising rapidly.

 

Climate Action Accelerates: Destinations are increasingly moving from ambition to action. The share of destinations reporting climate action at a sector level increased from 54% to 77%. Also, a growing number of destinations in the 2025 GDS-Index are demonstrating their commitment to climate action, with more than one in five (22%) now signed up to UN Tourism’s "Glasgow Declaration on Climate Action", a significant rise from last year (10%).

 

Certification Becomes Mainstream: Third-party verified sustainability certification is becoming a critical benchmark across the global tourism sector. The push for certification is gaining significant momentum, with 81% of hotels in the Top 10 destinations now certified, a notable rise from 66% in 2016. 50% of all DMOs in the top ten have now received a sustainability certification for their own organisational practices, demonstrating a significant, industry-wide commitment to leading by example.

 

From Intention to Action: Overall, destinations are showing strong progress in their impact and legacy contributions. In 2025, 32% of destinations improved these scores, while 10% saw a decrease. From 2021 to 2024, those with no programme averaged 35%, but this dropped significantly to 23.5% in 2025, indicating a growing commitment to impact-driven initiatives.

 

Regional Leadership Emerges: The 2025 data confirms that sustainability leadership is a global phenomenon, not confined to a single continent or region. Helsinki (93.52%) continues to set the unparalleled standard in Northern Europe, while Lyon (84.40%) leads in Central & Southern Europe. In the Asia-Pacific region, Melbourne (83.03%) tops the rankings, and Montreal (79.82%) retains its leadership position in North America, demonstrating that committed destinations worldwide are making significant strides.

 

Guy Bigwood, CEO and Chief Changemaker at GDS-Movement, said: “Every destination featured in the GDS-Index has demonstrated leadership and commitment - each one deserving recognition for its efforts to build a more regenerative future. As we mark the 10th year of the GDS-Index - with 626 benchmarking assessments completed across 35 countries since 2016 - one thing has remained constant: the courage of this community to lead with vision and to innovate with purpose. From shifting seasonality to changing governance and a pushback against sustainability, members of the movement meet each wave with intention, creativity, and a fierce resolve to do better, faster, together. It’s not just about riding the wave, it’s about learning how to read it, shape it, and surf it to make it count.” -TradeArabia News Service