The planet is our first love, isn’t it obvious? And we have tried to take care but also know we have been at fault. So we promise to look after her from now on.
We started AdventureYogi in 2006 borne out of a whole lotta love for the environment and the planet and its amazing benefits to the human mind and body.
We loved exploring her beauty and being in awe of magical moments in nature that transcend any expensive ring or mortgage repayment.
We knew how mother nature could turn a mood around, silent walking through woodland in the UK, breathing in jasmine in Sri Lanka whilst meditating and listening to the sounds of monkeys or watching a sunset altogether after an amazing hike. The connection to heart and mind and nature is palpable and real.
We did small things back then to look after the planet, but now it’s now time to step up even more as mother nature needs us more than ever. We are in a climate emergency, from climate change to pollution and the destruction of biodiversity.
Tourism has big positive and negative impacts on the planet; communities and families need it as well as whole economies and yet it encourages heightened carbon emissions and environmental damage. We want to contribute to this positively so see below what steps we are taking to do this.
Working towards carbon neutral by 2030
Carbon offset and carbon reduce starting from 2021
Set goals and measure our carbon output and be transaparent
Work with suppliers that align with our people and planet values
We have declared a climate emergency with Tourism declares a Climate Emergency, a global community of businesses, organisations, professionals in the tourism industry committed to delivering a climate action plan aligned with the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) to cut global carbon emissions to 55% below 2017 levels by 2030, to keep the planet within 1.5 degrees of warming. We are currently on track for 3 degrees by 2030.
By signing this treaty and the Glasgow Declaration in Tourism, which was created at COP26 in October 2021, we are committed to creating a Tourism Climate Action Plan that will provide transparent information on what we do and what we will do to help reduce and offset our carbon emissions so that by 2030 we are carbon neutral and by 2050 we have reached net zero as a company.
We know, we are a travel company and so it is hard for us to be carbon neutral or better still carbon positive. We are aware of greenwashing and we don’t want to do this. We are at the start of our journey and so we will be transparent about all that we do through our Climate Action Plan and are more than happy to have an open dialogue with you, our community so that you can see what we are doing to help contribute positively to carbon reduction.
After signing up to Tourism Declares, we had a good chat with a climate expert from Intrepid Travel about how we operate and what we do and we have already been taking steps to reduce our carbon naturally via our values as a brand. See below:
Since we joined Tourism declares in 2021 we decide to look into ways to help reduce our carbon straight away. It is only a small start, but we have signed up with Ecologi and we buy carbon credits each month with them for our teams; those who work behind the scenes running the business and our retreat teams, we make sure that we are a climate positive workforce.
Ecologi – we chose Ecologi to partner with to help us on our carbon reduction and carbon offset programme because they are pioneering in carbon offsetting and carbon reduction, as well as working in line with the UN SDG’s (Sustainable Development Goals) so that the projects that Ecologi invest into are also contributing towards helping work towards these 17 goals. SDG’s – Sustainable Development Goals have been agreed to and adopted by the United Nations Member States in 2015, these include goals such as good sanitation, health, education, reduced inequalities. Find out more here.
Ecologi is committed to working with Gold Standard projects only. This is the highest standard of climate management and they do this by quantifying, certifying and maximising the impact of each project and taking into consideration the 17 UN SDG’s.
Via Ecologi you can find our business page where you can see how many trees we plant each month and also what projects we are contributing to whether it’s carbon reduction or offsetting by planting trees, both aligned with the 17 goals of the SDG’s.
We will also plant 5 trees per retreat booking, so you can watch our forest grow!
If you would like to sign up to Ecologi or contribute in any way follow this link here to sign up!
We are working with suppliers who share our values and vision for the future and who are looking to reduce their carbon and look after their people. This is not only for the venues that we work with but also our behind the scenes suppliers that help the business run smoothly. Basically, we want a supply chain that is working towards the collective good.
As promised to Tourism Declares and the Glasgow Declaration, we are committed to creating a Climate Action Plan that is in line with the UN Sustainable development goals (SDG’s). These goals provide a blueprint for peace and prosperity for the planet and people, now and in the future.
Start to measure our carbon footprint for each of our trips and share the method in which we do it. We will be working with ecollective to help us start to measure and then offer advice on what the best way is to make the most impact on carbon reduction. We will then implement these suggestions and improve year on year.
Continue to reduce carbon emissions based on the information from our new system of carbon measurement and either offset or carbon reduce and be transparent on what we do.
Report externally about our carbon emissions and produce annual reports on how we are doing
To support them in learning ways of reducing their carbon output and learning ways to support local communities
We are beyond perfect and we recognise as a travel business we are part of the problem. We are at the beginning of our climate emergency journey to help reduce and offset and become carbon neutral by 2030. We are committed to staying on this path and becoming more passionate and knowledgeable about it. We invite an open conversation about it all and are happy to have a chat over a zoom call or coffee or phone call.
We are a very open company and are happy to talk to anyone about anything! So we will be very transparent about our continual learning and development and positive changes that we make about this very important subject and will update our yearly goals with the good or the not so good news of what we have done and not been able to do.
Get involved! Measure your own carbon footprint here with the WWF carbon footprint calculator and see what small changes can help to reduce your carbon footprint with Gold Standard.