OUR CLIMATE ACTION PLAN
We're in the midst of a climate and biodiversity emergency.
And like all travel companies, despite our efforts to build the world's most positive impact adventure company, we're heavily implicated.
Current IPCC advice tells us that, by 2030, we need to cut global carbon emissions to at least 55% below what they were in 2017, to keep the planet within 1.5 degrees of warming.
That's why we declared a Climate Emergency
...and called on the rest of the industry to join us.
Our goal
Clear metrics re the carbon footprint of our trips has enabled us to set ourselves the ambitious goal of reducing our emissions to 17 kg/customer/night by 2030.
- In 2021, this was 35 kg/customer/night.
- In 2022, this increased to 40 kg/customer/night.
- In 2023, we improved our efficiency, reducing it to 33 kg/customer/night.
Our plan
Our Climate Action Plan is broken down into 4 main areas: measure, reduce, remove and campaign.
Every year we update the plan to include our goals for the coming year, and publish a transparent report sharing our carbon footprint for the year, and assessing our progress against the goals we set.
1. Measure
We measure and transparently publish both our annual footprint, as well as a carbon footprint label for each of our trips.
We’ve also openly shared our methodology, in the hope other companies will be able to more easily follow suit.
2024 goals:
We will work with our partners to enhance our measurement system by gaining a more granular understanding of the carbon footprint of food, accommodation and transport, to enable them to reduce their carbon footprint better in these areas.
2. Reduce
Our carbon footprint measurement confirms what we had long suspected: compared to the industry average, the trips are relatively low carbon (once you get there). We typically camp and kayak, hike and stay in mountain huts.
This does not stop us continually looking to make improvements, however. Our trip-by-trip footprint analysis gives us the framework from which we can work with local hosts to identify ways to go even further in reducing carbon across their trips, and that informs our future activity.
2024 goals:
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Enable our hosts to more granularly understand their carbon footprint with a report and suggested actions for carbon reduction by end of 2024 with a view to review progress in 2025.
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Continue to expand our range of Big Adventures and our Get There by Train collection.
3. Remove
We take an additional step of offsetting emissions generated from each trip. We do this by purchasing high quality REDD+ nature-based offsets via our Foundation partners, the World Land Trust.
2024 goal:
Maintain this commitment and encourage our customers to contribute to World Land Trust also to offset their emissions to the destination.
4. Campaign
Given the relatively small size and carbon footprint of our business, the biggest carbon reduction gains are likely to be had by focussing our efforts on campaigning.
In 2020 we co-founded the Tourism Declares a Climate Emergency movement. In 2021 we collaborated with the United Nations Environment Program, United Nations World Tourism Organisation, The Travel Foundation and Visit Scotland to see this original climate emergency declaration successfully adopted as the central tourism industry framework for climate action, launched at COP26 in November as the Glasgow Declaration.
For the first time, mainstream global tourism leaders are unifying around a strong commitment to action that is aligned with the need to cut carbon at least in half over the next decade.
2024 goal:
Continue to support, advise and advocate for climate action.
"One of the best travel companies committed to climate action"
The Guardian
Transparency
We do not claim to know all the answers. As we go, we’ll transparently share our progress and our learnings in the hope others will learn from our mistakes. We’ll talk openly, invite criticism and collaborate with partners and competitors alike. Only by doing so do we have a chance of getting to our goal, not just as a company, but as a society.
NO GRAND CLAIMS
While we fund conservation and re-wilding work that has the potential to remove many times more carbon from the atmosphere than enters it as a result of our trips, we do not formally ‘carbon offset’ in order to claim carbon neutrality or carbon positivity.
We consider this to be misleading, and a dangerous distraction from the critical work of reducing carbon emissions.
INVITATION TO CRITICISE
By nature our adventure travel style is relatively low carbon - think hiking, kayaking and camping compared to luxury hotels and bus tours. See details of our carbon footprint analysis for more on this. However, as a travel company reliant on customers flying round the world we recognise that just by publishing this policy, we are opening ourselves up to accusations of greenwashing.
If traveller numbers are going to continue to increase as forecasts suggest - and few would argue otherwise - it’s our responsibility to engage with the challenges we face head on.
We’ll do everything we can to cut the carbon emissions we have any say over, encourage others to do likewise, and campaign for the wider system changes needed to move travel and aviation especially towards a low carbon future. Our plans are evolving continuously based on learning and sharing. If you have suggestions or insights that can help us improve, just email [email protected] anytime.
