We are travellers ourselves. We love to head out to unknown places and be moved by their magic. But often times we see the most beautiful of places destroyed by travellers who do not think about those will come after them or the people, environment and nature that makes these places, attractions in the first place. Although we are small company, we place a huge value on doing our business with the least harm.
Ethical and Sustainable
Preserving paradise for all the right reasons.
Travel you can enjoy right down
to your soul
Ethical and sustainable travel
to Sri Lanka Our approach
Firstly though we are a new kid on the scene. And we are in the process of learning as we go. But we strive to make sustainability a cornerstone of our business.
For starts, we consider the sustainability aspect of our partners. We only include large hotels who have a proven track history of being environmentally conscious, ethical and sustainable in their operations. Where such information is lacking, especially with the smaller hotel partners, we make it a point to ask and be aware of their own practices before including them in our plans.
Experiential travel is one of our unique propositions and this also requires us to work with multiple partners. Here too we are wary of the effects of these on local communities and the environment. We have, therefore, tried out these ourselves to assess the quality and impact. Only those activities that are in line with our philosophy are added to plans.
We also make it a point to highlight those hotels and experiences that have thought things through and are unique as a result.
Based on personal convictions and passions
And in our personal capacities, we are involved with numerous projects that cover reforestation, animal welfare and disability support as well as employing and working with marginalised groups of people such as disabled and those from the LGBT community.
We are also working towards all on ground travel through electric vehicles and introducing reusable items such as metal cutlery, glass bottles and other items that will reduce the carbon footprint of travel done with us.
Foozoo Travel Carbon Offset Programme
A round trip on Economy class from Melbourne Australia to Colombo will result in 3.1 tonnes of CO2. Fly business and it doubles to 6.1 tonnes. London to Colombo via economy results in 3.3 tonnes while JFK New York to Colombo will be a minimum of 5.7 tonnes. These figures are the minimum as the calculation has been done excluding additional stops along the way.
You can calculate and see the CO2 print of your air travel here:
So yes, travel makes the world a better place. The more we see the more we understand. Yet it comes at a cost. And because we promote international travel we felt it is also our responsibility to mitigate the effects of global travel on the environment to the best level possible.
So yes, travel makes the world a better place. The more we see the more we understand. Yet it comes at a cost. And because we promote international travel we felt it is also our responsibility to mitigate the effects of global travel on the environment to the best level possible.
A simple step in the right direction
Our efforts here is to plant trees. A single tree will absorb 01 tonne of CO2 over its lifetime. Once a tour is booked with us we will inquire about your travel plans and identify the number of trees we need to plant to offset this. These trees are planted in collaboration with a volunteer organisation (more details on request as we are not in a position to publicise their name). The cost of a tree is calculated at Rs.1000 and covers the cost of the tree, transport to remote area in which the tree is being planted, the preparation of the land, volunteer fees and meals. The cost also includes the maintenance of the site for a period of three years from the date of planting. About 200 plants are being planted every other week and this is an ongoing project Foozoo Travel’s owners are personally involved in.
Carbon offsetting has its critics and justifiably so. The moment you start offsetting the impact of travel it also makes you feel less guilty and may even lead you to travel more. Also in case a tree dies off or doesn’t live out its full expected life, we will fall short of the goal. Further, the effects of global travel is immediate. The offset happens over a much longer period. This is why we are not only planting the number of trees required to offset your travels but doubling the effort so we know we would most certainly meet the targets.
In addition to this we are constantly looking at ways to make our business sustainable and minimise the effects on the planet. These may go beyond carbon offsetting and building in eco-friendly practices to a lot more angles of our business.
Additional resources:
Holiday travel and the carbon footprint.
11 Smart Ways to Reduce Your Travel Footprint.
Cleaner than we found it!
Foozoo Travel invites its customers to join in the cleaning.
As a place gets popular, the crowds converge and with it the trash. We have seen this sad story repeat over and over again. Beautiful scenery, water ways, forests and natural habitat is ruined with irresponsible tourists (sadly more local than foreign) leaving their trash behind. So we asked ourselves, wouldn’t it be nice if we could visit a place, take in its beauty and leave it untouched?
This question led us to a simple solution.
We give all our Foozoo Travel customers a simple bag made of fair-trade fabric. It’s light and is lined with a fabric you can remove. Every time a customer visits a park or goes on a hike, we encourage them to take this bag with them and pick up some of the trash on the way to and back.
The bags inner fabric pouch can then be tossed along with the trash into a proper garbage disposal site. This means you can keep the bag to do the same elsewhere or simply use it for another purpose.
This simple act sends out a message to others who are also visiting these beautiful places and we hope your actions will inspire them to also clean up as they go!
