Sustainability

Human action impacts the world, whether it impacts the physical environment or impacts other living beings. Actions as simple as making a cup of coffee have effects that ripple outwards like a pebble thrown into a pond.

In recognizing that every action has impacts, our vision of sustainability is for our programs and business practices to have a net positive impact on the world. Our goal is for impacts from our programs and business practices to tip the scales towards the positive, so that the negative impacts that do occur are justified through a net overall benefit.

For us, sustainability means balancing the kinds of experiences we offer and the expectations of our students against the ability of our host communities to manage the social impacts of our visiting and the minimization of our impacts upon the environment, so that host communities benefit, environments are sustained and the ability for future travelers to enjoy the same experience is not compromised.

We’ve done a lot of soul searching about the sustainability of international travel. In a nut-shell, we believe that our programs can have a positive effect on the countries and communities we spend time in. We are an important source of income for many communities and provide valuable opportunity for meaningful cultural exchange. We utilize small scale local or family operated businesses for transport, activities and accommodation. We make our programs as low impact as possible, and facilitate as many learning opportunities as we can.

Overall Strategies

• Training and induction of staff on our vision, sustainability policies and organization ethics.
• Imparting sustainability concepts to students in a way that is constructive and inspiring.
• Keeping as much of program spending in host communities as possible.
• Advocating and teaching sustainability and ethical travel.
• Maintaining assessment of environmental and social impact of our programs in the planning stage and evaluation through student, instructor and host feedback.