Exodus Adventure Travels: ‘Why we ditched net positive from our nature commitment’

“I really love that the World Travel & Tourism Council has positioned the tourism sector as guardians of nature,” says Morgan. “As a sector we had our heads in the sand about our carbon impact, then we felt powerless when confronted by the climate emergency, so it’s helpful to see that we have a genuine role to play in the protection of the natural world. Nature feels like a tangible area for us to act in, something we can be proactive and positive about.”

Three years ago, Exodus identified climate change, waste and pollution, and ecosystem exploitation as key drivers of the travel industry’s negative impact on nature.

Morgan says: “The commitment we made was to ensure our adventures were nature net positive by 2024. We knew we were on a learning curve and were figuring out how to put tangible, measurable targets around this.

Net positive

“We’re really proud of the progress we’ve made alongside our partners over the last three years, but we’ve also learned a lot,” Morgan says.

“One of our key learnings has been that it’s not possible to say you will be a nature positive company, or yours will all be nature positive adventures, by a certain point in time. This is always going to be an ongoing journey, in collaboration with our sector, and so we removed the time frame. Instead, we’ve aligned our goals to global biodiversity goals, to make sure we tie them into a robust external framework and contribute to the bigger picture.”

She continues: “We’ve also recognised that we did some fairly basic maths to demonstrate that the positive was outweighing the negative, thanks to carbon reduction plus offsetting, plus elimination of plastics, plus a bunch of restoration actions.

“We’ve matured in terms of our understanding of how business-driven nature impact works, and so we removed the word ‘net’. We can never demonstrate a clear outweighing of nature – that is, positive impacts versus negative.”

Alongside this, there have “stubbornly difficult issues” to grapple with, not least making headway with carbon reduction, although decarbonisation is still part of the overall strategy. “The measurement alone has taken longer than we’d have liked and hoped,” says Morgan. “How do we truly measure the impact of our emissions?”

A glimmer of hope will be offered by an aviation industry mandated to start releasing their carbon intensity metrics, she says, so they can start to point customers towards more responsible choices.

A sight for sore eyes

Plastics continue to be a problem – the reduction in their usage has actually reversed, with the percentage of Exodus trips counting as free of directly provided single-use plastic dropping from 94% to 92%.

It is easier to control what DMC partners and tour guides put in the hands of customers. Harder to influence are hotels and restaurants on itineraries, although that is possible to do where good partnerships exist.

“We need to demonstrate that our customers really don’t want to use or see these plastics. It’s the number one comment in our feedback forms.”

Morgan puts the backwards step down to a tendency post-Covid to err on the side of caution with regards to single-use items. Sourcing filtered water in remote regions can also be difficult, although there have been creative solutions, such as hiring a water-carrying yak on Himalayan hiking trips.

The heart of Italy

Exodus is certainly not alone among tour operators in facing these challenges. But what gives Morgan optimism is real, impactful change. Partnering with Rewilding Europe, the operator focused efforts on the Apennine Mountains, a lesser-travelled region stretching down the spine of its most popular destination, Italy.

Exodus supported Rewilding Apennines in the rewilding of five corridors, giving the critically endangered Marsican brown bear free passage between national parks without wandering into towns and risking human wildlife conflict.

“It’s lovely that we’ve been able to support their cause in other ways too,” explains Morgan. “Our Italian Apennines: Walks & Wildlife is a beautiful trip with a great community angle. It brings tourists to the area and incentivises local people to protect wildlife with economic opportunity.”

Citizen Science has been another win, using Exodus customers to collect eDNA samples, that can help map species more comprehensively and efficiently than has ever been done before.

“We partner with Nature Metrics, who are working with the International Union for Conservation of Nature on a project called the eBio Atlas, and it’s exciting, because it informs conservation efforts.”

Not only is adventure travel the guardian of nature, but thriving nature is core to the success of adventure travel, says Morgan.

“We have this unique opportunity to create a community of nature lovers. It’s always thrilling to hear our customers rave about the moment they saw a leopard, or when they saw a sunrise over the mountains.

“That experience creates a ripple effect. I fervently hope and believe that connecting customers with the natural world will enhance their desire to protect and conserve nature in their purchasing decisions, their travel choices, whatever actions they take going forwards.”