EverTrek Declares a Climate Emergency

At EverTrek, we believe that travel not only opens up your mind to the wider world but also makes the world itself a better place. We started the company to make an economic impact in the countries we operate in and it's always been our mission to make sure we do so responsibly and sustainably. However, we understand that travel to these fantastic places is carbon-intensive and it does put the environment under pressure just by travelling. We have even seen the effects of climate change on the mountains and glaciers that we hike to or climb on and it's more apparent than ever that we need to do something. It's our responsibility to be part of the solution, not the problem. 

We are therefore delighted to be a signatory to Tourism Declares, an initiative that supports tourism businesses, organisations and individuals in declaring a climate emergency and taking purposeful action to reduce their carbon emissions as per the advice from The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to cut global carbon emissions to 55% below 2017 levels by 2030.


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Our commitments

 

1. Develop a ‘Climate Emergency Plan’ within the next 12 months, which sets out our intentions to reduce carbon emissions over the next decade.

 

2. Share an initial public declaration of our ‘Climate Emergency Plan’, and update on progress each year.

 

3. Accept current IPCC advice stating the need to cut global carbon emissions to 55% below 2017 levels by 2030 in order to keep the planet within 1.5 degrees of warming. We’ll ensure our ‘Climate Emergency Plan’ represents actions designed to achieve this as a minimum, through delivering transparent, measurable and increasing reductions in the total carbon emissions per customer arising from our operations and the travel services sold by us.

 

4. Encourage our suppliers and partners to make the same declaration; sharing best practice amongst peers; and actively participate in the Tourism Declares community

 

5. Advocate for change. We recognise the need for system change across the industry, and call for urgent regulatory action to accelerate the transition towards zero carbon air travel.

 

What we are doing already

 

In 2019 we partnered we set up a partnership with Mossy Earth. This is essentially to offset our carbon emissions through rewilding projects and planting of native trees in the UK and Europe with the aim of bringing back lost wilderness to Europe and improving biodiversity and restoring native ecosystems. You can read more about this HERE

 

We plant trees every month to offset our operations in the UK as well as plant a tree for every customer who makes a booking through the EverTrek website. This means that by going onto a trek with us, you are making an impact through Carbon Offsetting and restoring lost wilderness in the UK.

 

Water Filters to reduce plastic use on ALL trips

 

We introduced purified water filters on ALL OF OUR TREKS back in March 2019 meaning no more plastic and no more disgusting chlorinated water. We were the first high altitude trekking company to introduce this onto all of our treks in Nepal and it made a huge difference with people not only saving money by not purchasing bottled water but also most importantly not using plastic bottled water.

 

In the first season we introduced this water filters system, we worked out that just by making this simple change we saved 16,500 1ltr plastic bottles from being used in the Everest region. In just 1 season! We added these all together and worked out that if you stacked these on top of one another, it's the equivalent height of 5 Ben Nevis mountains on top of one another!  We have now introduced this on all of our treks on Kilimanjaro, Machu Picchu and beyond.

 

We are not perfect by any means and there is still a lot to do but we stand alongside a group of like-minded travel companies acknowledging the environment around us as a signatory of Tourism Declares a Climate Emergency. We will learn from one another, take responsibility for our actions (at an individual level, company level and industry level) and push for regulatory action, research and development. There is no excuse for waiting, this is why we are acting now.

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Written By

Andy Moore

Head Yeti & CEO