After kicking off our Impact Diaries in January, we’ve been super busy progressing our projects and getting on with it this February.
We are supporting environmental causes we think are important in helping to fight climate change. Each month we will summarise what kind of impact we have made and where that impact has been felt. We hope this will a) keep us accountable and b) inspire you to do the same.
In February we became a Climate Positive Workforce with Ecologi.
This is a step in the right direction of becoming a carbon negative company in the coming months. After calculating our average carbon footprint, we have signed up to offset that + 15% of additional carbon offsetting to become a Positive Workforce. We are a small team it’s fairly easy to calculate. As we grow, we will need to make sure we continue to grow our offsetting projects too. You’ll see our forest grow and our carbon reduction stats go up each month too.
In February our support went towards the following projects.
Mangrove planting in Madagascar
Our funds help support the non-profit Eden Reforestation Projects as they continue to reforest the island. Eden are world leaders in responsible reforestation, having already planted 265 million trees and created 2.6 million work days for local communities. Ecologi, who we work with, have our own designated land, to the north west of the island, near Marataola. Here they are planting in an area of 1,354 hectares (about 180km2). The first two million mangroves are being planted here, then there will be potential to move along the coast as contributions grow.
Reforesting in Changalane, Mozambique
Mozambique is located on the eastern coast of Africa with 68% of its population living in rural parts of the country. Historically home to vast mangrove estuaries and forests, Mozambique’s forests have been largely decimated and destroyed due to intensive tree cutting for firewood and charcoal.
The intensive practices of tree cutting for firewood and charcoal has led to a heavily degraded environment. With the help of our planting partner, Eden Reforestation, they will be planting 1,000,000 dry deciduous trees, helping to bring back a thriving ecosystem, and prevent further deforestation by alleviating poverty and creating a long term maintenance and protection plan.
Climate Emergency Declaration
We have also Declared a Climate Emergency as part of Tourism Declares, a collection of leading Tour Operators and Agencies who are united in fighting climate Change. We are pleased to be part of this movement and looking forward to learning more in the coming weeks.
It’s our mission to improve our environmental practices as a company for both our customers and employees. That’s why we’ve designed our three point action plan that holds us, as a company, and you, as individuals, more accountable. We want clean adventures not just fun ones.
- You offset your carbon emissions on every trip you book by paying a little bit more (offsets the carbon emissions your return flights)
- We offset our own carbon emissions as a business on a monthly basis through ‘Ecologi’
- We commit ourselves to being part of the conversation by constantly improving, innovating and holding ourselves accountable to whatever needs to be done. We’re doing that through ‘Tourism Declares’
- We will be incentivising train travel to our Alpine trips in the near future