Wilder by

Sustainable lodges and trips

Name: Club Studio
Price range: $

An insight in to how we know a lodge is a sustainable travel option

Alex

Operations & Marketing Development

Published on

25 Sept 2020

Updated on

09 Jul 2021

What makes a safari lodge, camp or a hotel a sustainable property?

There are a myriad of ways in which a safari lodge, camp or hotel can be considered sustainably minded, from reducing the amount of energy utilised on a daily basis, the way in which they source food and other products for their guests to actively working with local community projects.

From a minimum perspective before branching out to numerous types of ways in which a safari lodge, camp or hotel can be considered sustainable, there are generally three aspects to look at.

Solar Panels Star Dune Suite And Beyond Sossusvlei — A lodge in the Sossusvlei, Namibia with each of it's rooms connected to a dedicated solar power network

Environmentally sustainable

A lodge is making efforts to reduce their environmental impact. Whether it is reducing power consumption, utilising renewable energy sources (such as solar power), sourcing locally produced food/drink, obtaining water from a low impact source, reducing the amount of single use plastics, recycling and repurposing initiatives. In essence sustainability is about a world is one in which people enjoy happy, healthy lives within their fair share of the earth’s resources, leaving space for wildlife, wilderness and nature.

Community projects

Organisations are leveraging their influence in an area to help local communities by providing education and development opportunities, supporting enterprise initiatives and businesses, employment from the surrounding communities and helping them live in harmony with the natural environment.

Biodiversity protection

This covers all manner of topics from; protecting wildlife from human encroachment, illegal grazing of livestock, illegal hunting and poaching, putting measures in place to minimise human/wildlife conflict, ensuring the integrity of protected ecosystems from invasive species both flora and fauna as well as projects to correctly manage and potentially increase wildlife stability and diversity.

We’re dedicated to promoting people and organisations who are making these efforts and they way in which we gauge whether a property is a sustainable, from their survey results we made a decision that if a property has a lesser carbon footprint score than the regional and national averages for their location.

Some safari camps are perfectly in tune with the natural world around them

Peponi Hotel — Peoponi Beach Hotel, Kenya is a prime example of a hotel doing great work to be more sustainable

What do we consider to be a responsibly minded holiday?

There’s so many aspects which can be taken in to consideration with a myriad of variabilities, so, we put our heads together with our carbon offsetting partners and carbon scoring experts to have a clearly defined set of criteria which a Far and Wild holiday would need to meet.

50% and over of the accommodation selected for an itinerary includes a sustainable lodge, camp or hotel.
Our client (you) has taken the option to offset the carbon footprint of your holiday either through our partners or through a project you wanted to invest in.

A sustainable lodge must meet the following criteria

Their environmental impact was less than their country or regional average.
They are involved with sustainability projects to help benefit the local environment or surrounding communities.

We work with amazing organisations who do exceptional work to coexist in harmony with the natural world around them. If you’d like to learn more about how to travel more sustainably and which are our favourite sustainable lodges and trips, call us on 01768 603 715.

Alex

Operations & Marketing Development

I feel exceptionally privileged to have worked as a professional wildlife photography guide, spending a several years living and working in the African bush - being exposed to wonderous wildlife, vibrant cultures and the abundant beauty of Africa. Working at Far & Wild allows me to continue sharing my passion with others and seeing them discover it for themselves. I’m looking forward to helping you discover your next adventure.