Our sustainability journey

Here at Swoop, we love the outdoors.

But we know our business makes an impact on the climate, and therefore the natural world. That’s why everyone at Swoop is committed to this sustainability journey.

For us, adventure has always been about finding our own path. The spirit of adventure has helped us succeed as a company, and we believe it’ll help us lead the way towards a sustainable future for the travel industry.

Our sustainability journey will evolve over time, but this is where it starts: for now our focus is on offsetting more emissions than those we create from the bookings we take. By the end of 2022, we aim to have addressed our historic emissions going back to Swoop's inception 10 years ago. At the same time, we will seek out a new path for our industry - setting the standard among our peers, and changing how people think, feel and behave as they travel this precious world.

Introducing Our Sustainability Strategy

Swoop declares a climate emergency

We’ve signed up to Tourism Declares A Climate Emergency. This initiative links tourism businesses, organisations and individuals in taking purposeful action to reduce their carbon emissions. 

Introducing Our Sustainability Strategy

Reducing our carbon impact

The more carbon dioxide we put in our atmosphere, the more our climate will change, and an inescapable truth is that flights and cruises are among the biggest emitters in travel and tourism. We’re committed to reducing the impact of our carbon emissions (including those of our customers) – by measuring and reducing wherever we can, and offsetting everything else.

Introducing Our Sustainability Strategy

Travelling better

Introducing Our Sustainability Strategy

Hike to incredible Arctic vistas packed with wild beauty

The things we choose to do, use and buy have an impact on the environment. As well as reducing and offsetting carbon emissions, we’re starting by helping our customers reduce their impact in two ways – buying less new kit and avoiding single-use plastics.

Leading by example

Introducing Our Sustainability Strategy

Getting our own house in order means addressing what Swoop buys, how we travel and how we run our office. As we work towards our B-Corp certification, we’ll keep reporting on our progress and aim to bring everyone who comes into contact with us on the same journey.

A word from our founder

Working together

Swoop is one small company in a large, growing, industry. To tackle the challenge of sustainable travel, we must work together. Our business has three circles of influence: our customers, partners and industry.

  • For our customers, we’ll inspire and enable positive behaviour change - such as buying less, avoiding single-use plastic and contributing to carbon offsetting.
  • We want to work with partners who share our vision of sustainability. By working together, we can agree minimum standards of partner performance, set ambitious targets, and help each other improve.
  • We’ll collaborate across the travel industry, using our insights, know-how, tools and best practice to help other companies to reduce their impact faster.


Introducing Our Sustainability Strategy

Explore the bone-white bays of the Antarctic Peninsula

Backing positive change

Introducing Our Sustainability Strategy

We will support and invest in causes we believe in, particularly those that help protect precious places. To do this, we will identify and support the most impactful charities doing good work in all our destinations, while also continuing to build local partnerships that support our sustainability goals.

Generous by design

We are working to structure our business model so that as we grow, so too do the benefits to the wider world. We’ll do this by placing sustainability principles at the heart of our business, through our governance structure and Articles of Association.

We'll be sharing more on this as we move along in our journey.

Tough Questions

  • What are you actually doing?

    So far, we’ve hired a Sustainability Manager, established goals, set aside budget and started to confront the uncomfortable truths about our industry’s impact on the environment. 

    Through our commitment to r
    educing our impact, we’re measuring our carbon emissions and labelling our Antarctic trips according to their impact. We’re offsetting the emissions from our own operations and from any customer travel booked through us. We aim to offset more emissions than we’re responsible for and offset our historic emissions since 2010.

    Through our commitment to l
    eading by example, we’re getting our own house in order. Meanwhile, our Travel Better commitment helps us engage our customers in reducing their impact. These are the first few steps in a long journey - there will be more to come. 

  • Is it still justifiable to fly given the climate crisis?

    We know our trips have a high carbon impact, and we’re determined to find a way to reduce this. Alongside this, we believe it’s better to be a conscious, positive force for change in our industry rather than to quietly stop operating. In this way, we are committed to becoming a force for good through helping ourselves and others wrestle with challenges such as flying. 

    Finally, we know from experience that our trips can change people’s perspectives. By witnessing first hand the beauty and fragility of our destinations, our customers often return from their travels more committed environmentalists than when they left.

  • Is this just a marketing exercise?

    No. Everyone at Swoop shares the same deep concern for the future of our planet and we are committed to changing how we act as individuals and as a business to bring about positive change, particularly in relation to climate change and our natural environment.

  • Is this going to increase the cost of my holiday?

    No. We are absorbing the cost of all our sustainability work ourselves - it’s the right thing to do. We’re using our own profits to get ‘our own house in order’ and offset our customers’ trips. We then offer customers the chance to contribute and offset further through Gold-standard projects.

  • Is it responsible to travel to these destinations?

    We offer trips to the world’s most beautiful and - in some cases - most fragile places. We want to protect these places and take the following steps to make sure we have made a positive impact. Firstly, we are active participants in and members of IAATO (International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators), AECO (Association of Arctic Expedition Cruise Operators) and LATA (Latin American Travel Association), other membership bodies that are trying to minimise the impact of travelling to these destinations. 


    We collaborate with local partners who have lived in these regions, or explored them, for many years. They are passionate about educating customers, respecting the flora and fauna, and sticking to low-impact trails. Where possible, we also encourage our customers to support scientists working at the ends of the earth through Citizen Science programmes. Our Travel Better commitment also supports responsible behaviour in our destinations.

Keep reading

Leading By Example

Leading By Example

‘Getting our house in order’ means addressing what Swoop buys, how we travel and how we run our offices. We’ll keep reporting on our progress and aim to bring everyone who …

Discover More

Travel Better

Travel Better

The things we choose to buy, use and do have an impact on the environment. We’re starting by helping our customers reduce their impact.

Discover More