Our Responsibilities
Overseas
We believe that:
· People who work for us should be treated fairly and paid a fair wage.
· We should all learn about and respect the customs and culture of the country we are visiting.
· The local communities we visit should benefit directly by employing them as guides, eating in local restaurants and staying in local, family-run hotels and guesthouses.
We will use locally owned and operated services by preference:
· We will support small local businesses wherever possible by buying our food and equipment from them.
· We endeavour to minimise our impact on the environment by travelling in small groups, offsetting our carbon emissions and keeping our waste to a minimum and disposing of it responsibly.
We aim to educate others:
· We will encourage our clients to act in a responsible way and with an insight and understanding of the host destination at all times.
· We will work together with our business partners in the host destinations to implement the highest of standards, wherever necessary we will work together to ensure these standards are implemented and met.
· We will only use local porters and businesses that subscribe to Porter Protection Policies and can demonstrate that they treat their staff well and fairly.
· We will take into consideration economic, environmental and cultural issues when researching new destinations.
· We will continue to monitor our destinations to ensure that our scale of visits and activities remain appropriate to the environment.
· We will aim to ensure that our type and scale of tourism is appropriate to local conditions and operate within the limits set by local appropriate infrastructure and carrying capacity.
We aim to take responsibility:
· By using planes we are all directly contributing to the effects of global warming and the emission of CO2 into the atmosphere. On your behalf, we will offset your carbon footprint by contributing the appropriate amount to projects undertaken by The Carbon Neutral Company (www.carbonneutral.com) and The World Land Trust (www.worldlandtrust.org). If you DO NOT want to participate please notify us in writing.
· For the impact our visit will have on the environment, by keeping our water and atmospheric pollution to an absolute minimum.
· We aim to leave zero litter.
· We will integrate environmental considerations into all of our economic and business considerations.
· We will provide regular and ongoing training and support, both professionally and in the principles and practises of responsible tourism to our staff.
· We will work with to advise and encourage our local in-country contacts with whom we work to adopt practises of responsible tourism.
· We will provide advice and financial support for local community projects that will benefit the environment and the community as a whole.
In the UK
Our operations within the UK are conducted within the same framework of responsibility that guides our overseas operations.
We recycle as much of our waste paper as possible, where recycling is not possible for reasons of confidentiality we shred waste paper and recycle that as animal bedding. Glass, cans, clothing, food, cardboard, engine oil and old batteries are all recycled through Taunton Deane Borough Council’s recycling initiative. Through tight management systems, we try to reduce paper consumption and keep waste to a minimum.
Ink and toner cartridges are recycled through local schemes and old mobile phones and reading spectacles are sent to charities, which recycle them and use the proceeds to fund good causes both in the UK and overseas.
We aim to conserve and reduce our energy consumption through improving our management systems and using equipment with lower energy use and are continually monitoring and reviewing our energy usage.
