The travel experience collective
Australia
The travel experience collective
Australia
RESPONSIBLE
TRAVEL
WHAT DOES RESPONSIBLE TRAVEL
MEAN TO GLT
Many of us travel to enjoy Earth’s natural beauty. We fly across the world to visit beautiful beaches, glimpse unique wildlife and marvel at ancient geological features. These pristine environments are also the ones most at risk of degradation from outside influence through unsustainable travel practices. Responsible Travel to the Get Lost Travel Group means;
- Protecting the natural environment’s we visit
- Minimising our contributions towards climate change
- Protecting and celebrating the diverse cultures we encounter
- Providing a safe and enjoyable operating environment for all
- Ensuring our operations also provide benefits to the regions we visit
- Following minimal impact best practices
- Staying abreast of new and innotive changes
- Raise awareness of the impact travellers can have on the environment they visit
- Inspiring others to become active advocates for further conservation efforts
Reducing our
Carbon Footprint
We believe climate change is one of the largest challenges facing Earth and mankind today. It does not only mean warmer average temperatures across the globe; climate change could lead to all of Earth’s natural systems becoming altered and significant problems in the future. We as a team are working hard to ensure everything, from the paper we use, to the vehicles we tour in, have the smallest impact possible.
Our vehicles are the largest contributor of greenhouse gases from our business so to offset our carbon emissions we have proudly partnered with Greenfleet and are committed to offsetting 100% all of our vehicle and transport emissions each year. Offsetting ensures the greenhouse gas contributions we make can be absorbed through forest protection and tree planting programs.
While coal provided people the opportunity to revolutionise industry in the past, we understand it is no longer the way for the future due to its finite and environmentally degrading nature. Therefore, we are proud to be moving our depot over to a solar system. After consultation with Cherry Energy Solutions earlier this year, we have decided to invest in the installation of a solar system at our GLT HQ that is large enough to supply us with renewable energy for all of our power needs. This is in conjunction with our initial consultation over minimising our overall energy use. By 2018 Get Lost Travel will proudly be 100% supported by renewable energy captured on site. Not only will this reduce our negative environmental impacts, it has also been forecast this will be a highly cost-effective solution over the long term.
We are now proud partners of Greenfleet, a not-for-profit organisation which offsets transport carbon emissions. Being a travel and transport oriented company, we believe this is a huge step forward in reducing our ecological footprint and are very excited to have joined this program.
Emissions from vehicles and flights contribute to the greenhouse effect and hence lead to climate change and global warming. Offsetting with Greenfleet supports native reforestation programs such as tree planting along the Great Ocean Road. Forests absorb carbon emissions from the atmosphere, so programs like Greenfleet helps to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases remaining in the atmosphere, neutralising our vehicles contributions towards climate change.
Get Lost Travel Group is excited to announce we have offset 100% of all our transport emissions for 2016-2017, equivalent to the removal of 209.32 tonnes of CO2-e from the atmosphere.
By choosing to tour with GLT, our customers are contributing to the restoration of native Australian forests through Greenfleet initiatives and are having minimal impact towards climate change.
We take our commitment to the environment seriously!
We want to be there for our guests when they need to contact us and that means our office remains open for the majority of the day. This requires a lot of energy use through lighting for the offices. We recognized there had to be a more efficient way of doing things, so we contacted the Hobson’s Bay City Council, who recommended we switch all of our lighting over to energy efficient LED lights.
The process caused minimal disruption to our operations and we have seen our energy consumption drop by around 65% as a result. We are now even looking at replacing traditional on/off light switches in areas such as the kitchen, bathrooms and walkways with either timers or sensors to ensure they are off when not in use, further reducing our energy use.
If you are looking to reduce your energy consumption or Light$mart Program, try contacting your local council to find out more about what options are available for your region.
Printed brochures are a great way for us to communicate with our guests, however they are also resource intensive to produce and distribute. They consume large amounts of paper and ink and may only be used the one time before they are thrown out! We decided there had to be a better way while still being able to maintain communication with potential guests.
We discovered Mystique, a printing company that share our strong environmental values! By switching our printing needs to Mystique, Get Lost Travel Group’s brochures are now made with all recycled paper and natural inks and by a company that completely offsets all of their carbon emissions also! Mystique are also local for our business, reducing the intensive energy consumption required for long transportations.
We would like all this effort to continue on down the line too, so we also ask our guests to please by mindful when disposing of brochures they have finished with. We suggest handing them back to where you picked them up from or passing them on to other travelers who may find them useful also.
OUR COMMITMENT TO
Wildlife Protection
The Get Lost Travel Group place a strong emphasis on incorporating Australian wildlife into our tours, as we believe this is one of the things that makes Australia so special. We believe it is our responsibility to help protect native wildlife which we achieve by supporting many programs (link to giving back) committed to the conservation of natural, cultural and social assets.
Wildlife is so important to us here at GLTG, we have chosen to Wipe for Wildlife at the workplace, using only recycled toilet paper and tissues! We’ve chosen Who Gives A Crap, who not only protect our precious forests, but also give back to the world by helping struggling communities to develop much needed basic facilities for hygiene and sanitation.
Thousands and thousands of invaluable trees are cut down annually just to make toilet paper. The trees we are losing provide homes and food for wildlife, absorb carbon from the atmosphere and prevent soil erosion. Who Gives A Crap produce their toilet paper from recycled textbooks and office paper; materials that have already been removed from the environment. By choosing recycled toilet paper, we reduce the need for deforestation of bushland and habitat. If you would like to go only recycled also, visit Zoos Victoria or Who Gives A Crap to sign up!.
GLTG and our customers love wildlife and sadly, some of the koala population is struggling through disease, habitat destruction and declining population numbers.
Therefore, we felt it was our duty to help protect some of the wildlife that makes our tours so special! Our mountain biking tours visit one of Victoria’s key koala habitats, the You Yangs Regional Park. We are therefore proud sponsors of the Koala Clancy Foundation, a not-for-profit organisation passionate about the health and well-being of wild koalas in this region. They aim to raise awareness of the issues koalas are facing in Victoria and to get visitors involved through education, research and how to responsibly view and interact with koalas.
A portion of every ticket for our mountain biking tours goes straight towards the Koala Clancy Foundation, so as a guest of this tour you can be assured you are contributing the sustainability of koala populations in the region.
GLTG have also assisted in tree planting days in the You Yangs through our university programs.
Our Phillip Island day tours now include entry into Phillip Island Nature Parks’ Antarctic Journey, an interactive and informative display about the Antarctic region. This is a project managed by Phillip Island Nature Parks in partnership with the WWF, with the aim to increase awareness of environmental issues around the Southern Ocean. Locally, the WWF are focused on protecting creatures of the Southern Ocean through sanctuary zones and have so far established 2 of the world’s largest marine sanctuary zones in the Antarctic region. Seals, whales, penguins, sea birds and fish are all benefiting from WWF programs.
We are proud to be supporting such a vital cause and hope that our guests depart with a deeper understanding of the issues this part of the world is facing. Part of their ticket sales also goes to the WWF.
OUR COMMITMENT TO INDIGENOUS
CULTURE & UNDERSTANDING
GLTG is committed to ensuring the traditional owners of the areas we travel through are not only recognised, but also benefit from visitation to their lands. We strive to remain actively engaged with the traditional owners and ensure all travellers receive accurate and insightful information about their culture and traditions which delivered respectfully from our experienced Guides.