Sustainability at ETG - Then and Now
Sustainable travel has been at the heart of everything we’ve done since day one. When we started out, tick-box tourism was on trend – but we knew that didn’t resonate with how we viewed the world. Mostly, we recognised that travel was undeniably better when it wasn’t a simple one-way transaction. Because truly exhilarating travel, soul-stirring, breathtaking, lifelong memory-making travel, is based on respect, compassion and consideration for everyone and everywhere.
To this day, we’re proud that to travel with ETG means to have a deeply immersive experience that benefits both you and the people and places you visit. That’s not just words. We’re B Corp Certified, recognised as part of a growing community of companies that place sustainability at the heart of what they do. We are certified by SP Sustain in Sustainability Management for Tour Operators according to criteria set out by the Global Sustainable Tourism Council.
Fundamentally, we believe that travel done with care and compassion is a tremendous force for good. When you travel with ETG, every trip is centred around quality, responsible and sustainable travel - that’s a promise.
The ETG Approach to Sustainable Travel
Community Impact
When people take the time to interact, swap stories, learn from each other and enjoy each other's company, travel takes on a new dimension - it becomes a whole new extraordinary two-way experience.
And that’s why we place locals and local communities at the centre of every trip. Travel that delivers the everyday economic benefits of tourism for everyday people, and at the same time, extraordinary interactive experiences for you.
Whatever the ETG itinerary and whether in Sri Lanka, Thailand, Cambodia, Oman or wherever we operate, we support locally-owned businesses.
Our Give Back Experiences are emblematic of this overall approach. Enjoyable for you, impactful for your hosts and interactive for you both, each ETG Give Back experience is designed around the Envision UN Sustainable Development Goals to make a positive contribution to education or gender inequality, to cultural or environmental conservation.
Environmental Impact
We acknowledge that our travel experiences wouldn’t be possible without air travel, which significantly impacts the climate and environment. We signed the Glasgow Declaration on Climate Action in Tourism, joining the industry-wide commitment to halve our carbon emissions by 2030 and reach net zero by 2050. We’re dedicated to playing our part because we believe that travel, done with care and compassion, is a tremendous force for good.
While travel can’t be wholly carbon emissions-free, we’re starting to do what we can to reduce emissions with our Carbon Roadmap. Where we can’t reduce further, we aim to mitigate them as far as possible through our partnership with Seatrees. We purchase carbon credits for every holiday booked with ETG and every trip taken by ETG staff. We absorb the cost into the holiday. A non-profit program, SeaTrees regenerates ocean environments by planting and preserving underwater ‘blue-carbon’ or carbon-sequestering marine ecosystems, including mangrove and kelp forests, seagrass, coral and ridge-to-reef watersheds. There are many additional social benefits, too, for the regions we cover.
One Bottle at a Time
Single-use plastics? We help our in-country partners to eliminate single-use plastic water bottles from every trip. Easier said than done in truth, it’s been a huge logistical challenge given the importance of supplying our customers with fresh, cool water in a hot climate. That said, we ARE winning, investing in clean drinking water systems in our transport vehicles, encouraging our accommodation partners to provide refill stations and continually reminding our travellers to carry their refillable bottles.
We believe that the ETG community has the potential to save over 100,000 water bottles from being used in Asia every year. We hope you can join us in saving one bottle at a time.
Conservation
Sad but true, many wildlife experiences in Southeast Asia really don’t have the best interests of the animals at heart. Never afraid to lead by example we were one of the first UK tour operators to outright boycott them.
All ETG wildlife experiences are meticulously planned so that every tour carefully considers the welfare of the animals. We include animal welfare standards in supplier contracts and carefully vet any operators we work with. We also actively seek out organisations and guides working at the forefront of conservation and sustainability.
To help you get the most out of wildlife spotting opportunities without putting animals at risk, we provide detailed guidelines such as this Four Paws Animal-Friendly Traveller guide.
Education and awareness
An important part of our role as tour operators is to help our guests recognise sustainable and responsible travel. We make a point of sharing regional insights ahead of any trip so you always have the opportunity to properly understand the communities, cultures and environments you will experience.
You’ll find plenty of commonly asked questions about sustainability and the latest travel news updates on our ETG Travel Blog.
Transparency and accountability
Ultimately, it’s all about being the most sustainable operator we can possibly be. To help achieve that, and to be held accountable for our progress, we will continue to report honestly and accurately on the good and the bad.
As a B Corp, we must make an Impact Report each year and submit it to our board of directors. Here is our 2023 Impact Report.
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