Two years ago we, at Abel Tasman Canyons, took our first step towards Eco Friendly travel by going Zero Carbon. Since then we went one step further, we are now a certified Climate Positive business.
Why you ask? Well, simply put, we love the environment we operate in, it is our playground. Coming back from our canyon trips we feel healthy, energised and inspired. We want these places to be around for many generations to come. For this reason, and many more, the Abel Tasman Canyons team stuck their heads together for some Eco Friendly brainstorming.
So what does all this mean? We all produce carbon, we’re all aware that it hurts our planet. And we all know that we should make significant changes to turn the climate crisis around. Measuring our carbon emissions was the first step, and we did this together with the specialist at EKOS.
A full report gets produced which states the total amount of emissions and how they are produced (company vehicles, staff commuting to work, freight, waste, power, water, travel etc.). The report enables us to scrutinise our processes and make changes to clean them up. This is a process which doesn’t happen overnight, every little change helps but it is a long road to bring emissions down to zero. For the time being we chose to off-set our remaining emissions by buying carbon credits on the New Zealand Emissions Trading Register.
In 2019 we measured 20.66t CO2e and off-set 100%.
In 2020 we measured 13.33t CO2e and off-set 120%.
In 2021 we measured 15.19t CO2e and off-set 120%.
We are fully aware that off-setting carbon emissions is not the answer to the climate crisis. Our focus is on reduction. Off-setting is a tool available to us to invest in nature in the meantime.
We’re a small business, changing our own processes won’t make that much of a difference. But there is so much more to it than that. By being a certified Zero Carbon and now a Climate Positive business we intend to inspire our staff, clients, audience, business partners, and really anyone. We hope that others also step up and, at the very least, be more aware of how each one of us can make changes and tread lighter. The Abel Tasman region has plenty of eco friendly businesses, many are walking the same path as us. There is even a Zero Carbon itinerary for our region, the first in the New Zealand!
To see what else Abel Tasman Canyons does to be an Eco Friendly, low impact and sustainable business please have a look at our sustainability page.
In last years’ blog you can read about how we proudly became a Zero Carbon business.
