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Climate-Positive Operations
Intro
At Expert Excursions we care deeply about our environment and the planet that our children will inherit from us. And naturally, we believe that being able to share our beautiful country with you is a wonderful thing. However, we have the moral responsibility to balance this with the effect that our tours have on the environment.
Our Pledge
So for every tour that we operate, be it a driver-guided tour, shore excursion, or walking tour, we will offset more carbon than that produced by our tours by investing in a variety of UN-certified projects around the world. We understand that carbon offsetting is only an interim measure while new technologies are being developed and this alone will not prevent climate change. However, at the moment we believe it’s the best way to remove and prevent further carbon from entering our atmosphere.
As part of our commitment to contribute to the global fight against climate change, we aim to offset a minimum of 30x more greenhouse gas emissions than are created by our operations.
We thank you for choosing to explore Scotland responsibly with us. We at Expert Excursions love this country and so we are fully committed to protecting the land that we love and ensuring a positive future for Scotland and the wider world.
What is being Climate Positive? Is it the same as Carbon Neutral?
Although similar, Carbon Neutral and Climate Positive are two different things. Carbon Neutral refers to achieving zero net release of carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere, usually as a result of carbon offsetting.
Being Climate Positive means going above and beyond achieving net zero carbon dioxide emissions, by actually creating an environmental benefit by way of offsetting or removing more harmful emissions from the atmosphere than are released from your operations.
Why the Climate Positive approach?
In 2015, the Paris Agreement set out its primary goal to strengthen the global response to the threat of climate change by keeping a global temperature rise this century well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5 degrees Celsius. Doing so recognizes that this would substantially reduce the risks and impacts of climate change.
At Expert Excursions we want to do our bit in the global fight against climate change and contribute to the reduction of harmful emissions into the earth’s atmosphere.
For further reading on climate change, we recommend the following:
Our 3-Step Approach to Climate Positive Operations
1. MEASURE your climate footprint.
We measure the main sources of emissions on our tours and our office operations. To do this we use the Greenhouse Gas Protocol, which provides the world’s most widely used greenhouse gas accounting standards.
2. REDUCE your footprint as much as you can.
We take a sustainable approach in all of our operations, on our tours and in our offices.
On our tours we work with locally-based guides who use modern, fuel-efficient or electric vehicles and encourage them to use public transport when commuting.
In our offices, we only use 100% renewable energy suppliers, recycle waste responsibly, and have virtually eliminated our use of paper.
3. OFFSET the rest with UN Certified Emission Reductions
For unavoidable emissions from our operations that we cannot further eliminate or reduce, Expert Excursions offsets these emissions by purchasing UN Certified Emission Reductions (CERs). These reductions are generated from UN certified projects operating in developing countries. The projects earn 1 CER for each metric tonne of greenhouse gas emissions they reduce or avoid and are measured in CO2 equivalents.
By purchasing UN CERs we are making a direct financial contribution to each project in our carbon offset portfolio, allowing these projects to continue reducing emissions. We have identified four key international projects from which we will purchase CERs from in 2019-2020.
Our Certified Emission Reduction Projects
Wind Turbine Power
The funding of wind turbine projects produces clean electricity which is fed directly to the local national grid, supporting the country´s long term sustainable renewable energy development . These projects reduce and replace the use of dirty fossil fuels in local electricity production with clean, renewable energy.
Waste Energy Recycling
Methane emissions from farms and landfills are captured and used as fuel to generate electricity. These projects result in the reduction of methane and displacement of electricity from the national grid.
Hydroelectric Power
The funding of hydroelectric power projects produces clean electricity which is fed directly to the local national grid, supporting the country´s long term sustainable renewable energy development . These projects reduce and replace the use of dirty fossil fuels in local electricity production with clean, renewable energy.
Going forward we pledge to continue to increase our financial contributions to these projects to further improve on our current policy of offsetting of 30x more greenhouse gas emissions than are created by our operations.
We will also seek out new types of projects around the world from which we will purchase CERs in order to cover a diverse range of industries and emission reduction types.
