At the heart of STC Expeditions is the underlying belief that tourism, and business in general, can be a force for good in our often troubled world.
Businesses can, and should, have a positive impact on communities, the environment, personal well-being, education, cross-cultural understanding and much more. Tourism, and particularly our niche area of adventure tourism for young people, has a unique opportunity to educate the next generation and take the positive impacts of tourism into remote areas around the world that other businesses simply can’t reach.
Responsible tourism and ethical travel has been a cornerstone of our business since 2006. Yet, whilst there are many positive benefits that come from our trips, we can’t escape the fact that all our itineraries involve flying and other carbon emitting forms of transport.
We have already taken bold steps to minimise our negative impact on the environment, but we are conscious that we still need to do more. For this reason, as of 16th January 2020, we are joining the global campaign ‘Tourism Declares’ and declaring a Climate Emergency.
Our Pledge:
The Directors of STC Expeditions pledge to:
Develop a ‘Climate Emergency Plan’ and for this plan to be adopted within 12 months, sooner if possible. This plan will look to:
- Reduce our overall Carbon Emissions. We accept current IPCCadvice stating the need to cut global carbon emissions to 55% below 2017 levels by 2030 to keep the planet within 1.5 degrees of warming.
- Put in place systems and actions designed to achieve emissions reduction through delivering transparent, measurable and increasing reductions in the total carbon emissions per trip arising from our operations and the travel experiences sold by us.
- Develop new innovative travel experiences that are inherently low-carbon in nature.
- Increase carbon awareness amongst our clients and travel partners around the world through education, encouragement and identifiable actions that will help us achieve our shared goals.
Review, and update where necessary, existing STC responsible tourism policies in light of the Climate Emergency. Actions we currently take include:
- Planting a tree for every client that travels with us through Trees for Life since 2019.
- Employing local tour and expeditions leaders from the destination, rather than flying a leader over from the UK.
- Encouraging all our teachers, students (and their parents) to fly less.
- Delivering a Responsible Tourism workshop to all groups prior to travel, in addition to providing advice and tips on how to be a more responsible traveller.
- Pledging to ‘Travellers Against Plastic’ and encouraging our clients to do the same.
- Office policies of using 100% renewable energy, Fairtrade purchasing, FSC certified or recycled paper.
- Travel by rail to visit clients where possible.
- Promoting the work of campaign groups such as ReThink Orphanages, ChildSafe and Tourism Concern.
- Regular environmental clean up projects on our trips and local to us in Devon by STC staff.
- Animal welfare policy.
For more details on all of the above, please click here: https://www.thestc.co.uk/travel/what-do-we-do/
Continue to advocate change within our industry and call for urgent regulatory action to accelerate the transition towards zero carbon air travel.
- Through conferences, thought-leadership articles, responsible tourism workshops, letters and interviews in the press we pledge to actively engage in promotion of the need to combat the climate emergency.
Make public our progress on implementing our Climate Emergency Plan.
For more information on our Declaration of a Climate Emergency, please contact the office on 01392 660056 and ask for Adrian Ferraro.