Sustainable Travel

Inspiring and Improving lives through travel

Since Headwater began over 35-years ago, climate change is more apparent than ever, from melting ice caps to extreme weather events. Tackling the climate crisis is a collective effort and Headwater have a pivotal role to play in minimising our negative impact and using tourism as a force for good. Our People, Places and Planet Plan lays out the ways we persistently and passionately seek to improve life through travel - for the people we meet, the places we visit and the planet we explore. Click here to read our latest sustainability reports.

Read more here on our efforts to measure our carbon and the actions we are taking to manage and reduce it.

Our people, places & planet plan

Looking at our social and environmental impact, our wide community of 'responsible adventures' helped us to identify six key UN Sustainable Development Goals to work towards, as part of our People, Places & Planet plan:

Goal 8 - Decent work and economic growth
Goal 11 - Sustainable cities and communities
Goal 12 - Responsible consumption and production
Goal 13 - Climate action
Goal 14 - Life below water
Goal 15 - Life on land

People

Economic empowerment for local communities and marginalised groups
Employment opportunities for locals and those who need them most
Promoting and supporting gender equality across the globe
Education provision, even in the world's remotest corners
The highest standards in child protection
Protection of traditional and cultural heritage
Disaster relief for our destinations in times of crisis

To read more, click here.

Places and planet

Our Nature Positive commitment, including:
Halving our carbon footprint by 2030
Rewilding 100 square metres for every passenger
Eliminating single-use plastics
Adhering to the highest standards of animal welfare
Supporting nature restoration through our trips and engagement
Investing in projects, like this here, that support the removal of carbon and restoration of nature

To read more, click here.

The Exodus Travels Foundation

Here at Headwater, and at our sister company Exodus Travels, we are all passionate about the power of travel to make a positive impact on the world around us. We work hard to make sure our adventures empower and protect the communities and environments we take people to visit, and we are thrilled to support this goal further through the Exodus Travels Foundation.

Thanks to the generosity of our clients and partners and the breadth of our networks, we are able to support a number of community-based projects which improve life in hard-to-reach places.

Read more about the Foundation's work here.

Headwater Declares a Climate Emergency

We are delighted to be a signatory of Tourism Declares a Climate Emergency, a collective of travel businesses and organisations committed to delivering effective climate action. As part of Tourism Declares:

We publicly accept the current IPCC advice that we need to cut global carbon emissions to 55% below 2017 levels by 2030 to keep the planet within 1.5 degrees of warming.
We are developing a Climate Change Action Plan with a science-based target to halve our carbon footprint per client by 2030.
We commit to publicly communicating both our plan and our progress.
We will work with our suppliers and partners, to encourage them to make their own declaration, and with the Tourism Declares community to share best practice and solutions with the wider travel industry.
We recognise the need for system change across the industry and will join others in calling for urgent regulatory action to accelerate the transition towards zero carbon air travel.

Proud signatories of the Glasgow Declaration

The climate action movement continues to gather momentum and we are proud signatories of the Glasgow Declaration on Climate Action in Tourism which was launched at the COP26 UN Climate Change Conference in 2021.

The Glasgow Declaration aims to co-ordinate the tourism industry to take urgent action on the climate crisis. By signing, Headwater and sister company Exodus have declared our commitment to halving carbon emissions by 2030 and reaching 'Net Zero' before 2050, in line with scientific recommendations. Our Nature Positive Commitment details the actions we are taking not only as part of the Glasgow Declaration but our own sustainability strategy, to reduce carbon and regenerate biodiversity, giving back to nature more than we take.

SUSTAINABLE TRAVEL