Explore plastic free and Water-to-Go

When examining the UN sustainable development goals, and addressing which are most pertinent to ourselves, number 12; ensuring sustainable consumption and production patterns, felt intrinsically linked with tourism. Human consumption of material goods, their packaging, our food waste and energy use are wound through all elements of our lives, and not least our business; from head office through to the day to day running of a trip.
 
So where do we start? We’ve made great progress in our head office. Now we need to really examine our trips and supply chain.  
 
Explore wants all of our holidays to be completely single use plastic free.
 
It feels like this should be an attainable goal. We have an internal dedicated group of staff working with our agents and tour leaders to make this possible. We have discussion forums with our local agents to ensure we create strategies that work on the ground, and are not just created and pushed out from our head office. We consult with industry professionals and peers to also shape our guidance and hopefully create robust strategies to meet this goal.
 
It’s got to work, right? But in reality these projects inevitably create ripples much further than anticipated, highlighting weakness not previously noticed.
 
Our starting point was to stop all single use plastic bottles from being provided on our trips in 2020. The reality was that our trips didn’t operate for most of that year as we all faced the repercussions of the global pandemic. But operating plastic free holidays remains a commitment, so we are busy making plans to balance a world more aware of simple hygiene procedures whilst not contributing to the devastating consequences of single use plastic.  

We always welcome feedback and have set up several different ways to get in touch if you want to highlight areas which need improvement, and with your support we can all work together for a cleaner and more sustainable planet.

 Email sustainability@explore.co.uk for more information.