Cycling is one of the cleanest, greenest and healthiest forms of travel. Those of us who cycle for leisure, for adventure or as a way of exploring other countries can have a significant impact on the environment around us, and the communities we engage with on our journeys.
This is a statement of the ways in which the company and the staff of CycleActive aim to ensure that the impact we have is positive. This is a constantly evolving document, and we would encourage anyone who is thinking about travel or training with us to comment on our approach. If you have ideas on how we can do things better we would very much like to hear from you.
Chris Ford
Founder and Director
CycleActive
Environment and Community Pledges:
Cycle Travel Plans. Our holidays are all designed to maximise cycling time and minimise driving time, reducing overall distance travelled in vehicles as much as possible. Whether we’re mountain biking in Italy or touring in Cuba we endeavour to plan holidays that give our clients as much time in the outdoors as possible. There is no rushing between locations in vehicles, or rides with long vehicle transfers.
Environmental and Social Awareness. All CycleActive guides are trained in environmental awareness and responsibilities, and we work with partners around the world to ensure that our activities are carried out in a socially aware and sensitive way.
Community Activities. We support a range of cycling and outdoor activity related projects in the UK. Our expertise in the fields of leadership training, cycle coaching and youth development is widely called upon and we work on a no-fee basis for the National Governing Body for mountain bike leadership and the National Skills Academy for the Outdoors. We also give time to community cycling projects that need help and expertise to secure facilities, develop youth training programmes and raise funds through sporting bodies.
International Partnerships and Training. Local guides around the world acknowledge with some cynicism that many “environmental policies” which state that companies only employ local staff are little more than cost saving excuses. We take a radically different approach. Wherever possible tours are led by two guides – one experienced and qualified cycling expert from our UK team, and one skilled and knowledgeable local guide. UK staff provide training to our partners on cycle skills, maintenance, bike setup and related activities, while local staff develop our language skills, social understanding and local knowledge. Together these international teams provide the highest standards of leadership and safety in the cycle travel industry.
In-house operations. We aim to reduce all office waste, to reuse or recycle everything from paper to cycle parts, and to constantly review the operations of the business to ensure that we are being as environmentally conscious as possible. One step taken in 2006 was to stop producing annual brochures, stop all client mailings other than by email, and to provide full holiday, course and company information on our website.
Carbon reduction. With help from one of the UK’s leading experts on Climate Change and Environmental Engineering (a generous client of ours who herself has given her expertise free of charge) we are working on a detailed carbon reduction programme for ourselves and our clients. This will include the purchase of carbon credits to offset all emissions from our operations, and the offering of targeted WWF Gold Standard carbon credits to allow all clients to travel in a way that has no impact on the global climate.
