Travel Has A Large Carbon Footprint.
TWP Tours is committed to making sustainable choices when we travel.
Carbon Offsets
At TWP Tours we make sustainable choices everywhere we can (by choosing sustainable lodges, eating locally produced food, and following emerging sustainable travel best practices), but travel inherently has a large carbon footprint. For this reason, included in the cost of a TWP Tour is a credit towards carbon offsets equivalent to the amount emitted by your air travel to and from the tour destination. The carbon credit included in your tour cost goes directly to one of two offset projects: clean cookstoves and reforestation. In some cases, you will have the opportunity to implement the project offsetting the carbon you emitted via travel in the field while on your TWP Tour! If you’re interested in purchasing additional carbon offsets for this trip, or other activity in your life, you can!
Clean Cookstoves
Trees, Water & People’s Clean Cookstove Program aims to replace open fire cooking with fuel efficient, clean cookstoves. In Central America, 80% of families cook their meals with firewood, a practice that contributes greatly to carbon emissions and deforestation. Our innovative clean cookstove designs mimic traditional stoves while using up to 70% less wood. Based on studies and calculations conducted by TWP and independent consultants, these savings in firewood equate to 1.5-2 tons of carbon emissions per year. Over the stove’s minimum projected lifespan of five years, that equates to 7.5-10 tons of atmospheric carbon avoided.
Reforestation
The goal of Trees, Water & People’s Reforestation Program is to improve watershed health and implement sustainable land management practices throughout Central America and the United States. On average, one tree planted by TWP can sequester one ton of carbon over its lifetime. To account for natural mortality rates, we plant five trees per one ton of offset carbon.
Patronizing Local Businesses
TWP Tours partners with like-minded local non-profits, community partners, small businesses, and in-country operators both to keep the environmental impact of our tours low, and ensure that the money we spend is going directly back into the communities we visit and work in. Trees, Water, & People has been working in most of our tour destinations for over a decade – meaning there are long-standing, trusted relationships with community partners in place and genuine, conscious awareness of community needs and restrictions.
Encouraging and modeling sustainable choices
TWP Tours encourages all staff and participants to make sustainable choices along their travels – from using biodegradable toiletries, not contributing unnecessary trash and plastics to the waste streams in the communities we visit, offsetting the carbon emitted by their travel, and patronizing local businesses.
Interested in learning more?
