Introducing Our Sustainability Strategy

So far, we’ve hired a Sustainability Manager, established goals, set aside budget and started to confront the uncomfortable truths about our industry’s impact on the environment. 

Through our commitment to reducing our impact, we’re measuring our carbon emissions and labelling our Antarctic trips according to their impact. We’re offsetting the emissions from our own operations and from any customer travel booked through us. We aim to offset more emissions than we’re responsible for and offset our historic emissions since 2010.

Through our commitment to leading by example, we’re getting our own house in order. Meanwhile, our Travel Better commitment helps us engage our customers in reducing their impact. These are the first few steps in a long journey - there will be more to come. 

We know our trips have a high carbon impact, and we’re determined to find a way to reduce this. Alongside this, we believe it’s better to be a conscious, positive force for change in our industry rather than to quietly stop operating. In this way, we are committed to becoming a force for good through helping ourselves and others wrestle with challenges such as flying. 

Finally, we know from experience that our trips can change people’s perspectives. By witnessing first hand the beauty and fragility of our destinations, our customers often return from their travels more committed environmentalists than when they left.

No. Everyone at Swoop shares the same deep concern for the future of our planet and we are committed to changing how we act as individuals and as a business to bring about positive change, particularly in relation to climate change and our natural environment.

No. We are absorbing the cost of all our sustainability work ourselves - it’s the right thing to do. We’re using our own profits to get ‘our own house in order’ and offset our customers’ trips. We then offer customers the chance to contribute and offset further through Gold-standard projects.

We offer trips to the world’s most beautiful and - in some cases - most fragile places. We want to protect these places and take the following steps to make sure we have made a positive impact. Firstly, we are active participants in and members of IAATO (International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators), AECO (Association of Arctic Expedition Cruise Operators) and LATA (Latin American Travel Association), other membership bodies that are trying to minimise the impact of travelling to these destinations. 

We collaborate with local partners who have lived in these regions, or explored them, for many years. They are passionate about educating customers, respecting the flora and fauna, and sticking to low-impact trails. Where possible, we also encourage our customers to support scientists working at the ends of the earth through Citizen Science programmes. Our Travel Better commitment also supports responsible behaviour in our destinations.