REPORT | 2024
Incorporating the Exodus Adventure Travels Foundation
Our 50th birthday and a step change for sustainability
As a B Corp, we are proud to be part of a growing movement that sees the potential for tourism as having a positive impact on the places and people visited. In a world currently shaped by uncertainty — socially, economically, ecologically — the role of responsible travel has never been more important. It has the power to connect people across cultures, to support livelihoods in places often overlooked by mainstream economies, and to inspire a deeper appreciation for the natural world.
2024 marked Exodus’ 50th birthday, and a year of step change for our sustainability and impact initiatives. We redefined our strategy and refocused our Exodus Foundation to drive deeper, more effective change. As our report shows, this journey is not always easy, but we’re committed to learning as we go and we’re making steady, meaningful progress.
2024 was also the year I took on the role of MD at Exodus. I’ve been inspired by the commitment of our teams to our sustainability agenda, by the generosity of our customers, and the resilience of the communities we work with around the world; it has been inspiring to see just how much meaningful change can be achieved when we all collaborate in this area. As such, I want to say a wholehearted thank you to everyone who has played a role in the activity detailed within this report and look forward to building on this positive impact in the years ahead.
SALLY COWDRY, Managing Director, Exodus Adventure Travels
This report covers the activity of Exodus Adventure Travels, its sister brand, Headwater, and the Exodus Adventure Travels Foundation. It covers the activity undertaken in Exodus Adventure Travels and Headwater’s financial year 2024 (Oct ‘23 to Sep ‘24) and the Exodus Adventure Travels Foundation’s financial year 2024 (Jan to Dec ‘24).
The data featured is taken from a few different sources, including our Customer Holiday Evaluation Forms, the impact data given to us by our sustainability and Foundation partners and our annual supplier sustainability survey (80% response rate for Exodus suppliers, 70% for Headwater suppliers). This year, we improved our survey analysis methodology, which – in a few cases - has resulted in a small comparative discrepancy versus last year’s data.
92% 93%
519 of nights on Exodus trips were in LOCALLY OWNED ACCOMMODATIONS
SINGLE-USE PLASTICS
87%
LOCALLY OWNED RESTAURANTS
REWILDING ACTIVITY SUPPORTED ACROSS
HECTARES
Community Kickstart of our trips were free of any directly provided in the Central Apennines
30 GRASSROOTS INITIATIVES
78
30 Environmental DNA samples taken by our customers to SUPPORT GLOBAL CONSERVATION
FEMALE PORTERS TRAINED RESTORED MADE TO SUPPORT Project GRANTS of meals on trips were served at
Hectares of blue carbon habitat
as Mount Kilimanjaro guides in Tanzania
During 2024, we revised the vision and mission of the Exodus Adventure Travels Foundation. In narrowing our focus, and aligning it more closely with Exodus’ wider sustainability and impact aims, we hope to fund the areas in which we are best placed to drive impact and raise support from our customers.
OUR VISION
We want to help create a world where all travel and tourism supports nature and communities to thrive in harmony.
OUR MISSION
To invest in innovative, sustainable, tourism-related projects which support our destination communities to protect and regenerate nature, and harness nature to empower communities.
OUR MANIFESTO
Thriving nature is essential for the empowerment of communities; providing not only basic needs, but also the economic opportunities that responsible tourism brings.
Equally, thriving communities are essential in the protection and regeneration of nature. We believe travel & tourism has a vital role to play in promoting and increasing the mutual benefits of this relationship between people and nature.
Our Foundation exists to find, fund and accelerate innovative and scalable solutions, in order to see both nature and people thrive in harmony.
THRIVING NATURE, THRIVING PEOPLE PLAN Our
We launched our first sustainability and impact strategy – our People, Places & Planet plan – in 2019. Five years on, we have revised and refocused our strategy, now called our Thriving Nature, Thriving People plan.
The objective was to drive a more single-minded focus on supporting the relationship between healthy biodiversity and empowered communities, within our context of climate and biodiversity crisis. We have learned a lot over the last few years about the vital role of local communities in protecting and restoring nature, as well as the way in which regional biodiversity can be harnessed, not least through responsible tourism, to empower these same communities. Supporting this mutually beneficial relationship is where we believe we – and our customers – can have the greatest impact.
Within this revised framework, we have set ourselves newly refocused goals for the next 3 years (2025 to 27). As such, some of the goals outlined in our 2023 impact report have been removed or revised.
Many of our 3-year goals are continuations or evolutions of activity already underway, so in the following pages, we will use our new goals to share progress made in these areas during 2024.
OUR GOALS OVER THE NEXT 3 YEARS:
Reducing waste across our offices and trips
Pursuing science-aligned decarbonisation
Protecting animals and endangered species
Supporting land and ocean-based nature restoration and carbon removal
Increasing the ways our itineraries support the protection and restoration of nature
Creating employment and income generation opportunities for destination communities
Empowering disadvantaged and under-represented communities
Supporting grassroots initiatives in destinations
Operating responsibly and transparently (in line with our B Corp certification)
Collaborating cross-industry
Engaging with customers, staff and suppliers
THRIVING NATURE
Our ‘Thriving Nature’ goals follow a ‘Nature Positive’ approach, based on the principles of removing and reducing our negative impacts on nature, and doing what we can to support the conservation and restoration of nature. These goals are aligned with the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, to help us focus on actions which will contribute to the global biodiversity goals.
SPOTLIGHT
Free to Roam Project
LOCATION: KENYA
BACKGROUND: The goal of this project is to promote peaceful co-existence between wildlife and the community within the Kamungi Conservancy. This is done by empowering Tsavo communities to give 90% of land back to nature, while increasing food security through permaculture on the remaining 10%.
IMPACT 2024: We funded further fence construction, carried out by 18 local community labourers, protecting 2 houses from further human/wildlife conflict. The local community participated in training on arid and semi-arid agricultural practices by specialists and 60 farmers received training.
We also provided a Community Kickstart grant to facilitate education workshops for students, focused on the importance of conservation and the benefits of tree planting.
Reducing waste across our offices and trips
PROGRESS:
OUR KEY WASTE REDUCTION FOCUS IS THE SINGLE-USE PLASTIC USED ACROSS OUR HOLIDAYS, WITH A PRIMARY FOCUS ON ANY DIRECTLY PROVIDED TO OUR CUSTOMERS DURING TRIPS.
In 2024, 93% of our trips were free of any directly provided single-use plastics, vs. 92% in 2023 meaning we still have work to do. These items include individual bottles, cutlery, food wrapping or containers. We continue to be members of the Global Tourism Plastics Initiative, which provides useful resources and cross-sector learning to help us and our supplier partners on our journey.
OF THE ACCOMMODATION FEATURED ON OUR TRIPS:
offer filtered water via refill stations, reducing the need for plastic bottles
NEXT STEPS: GOAL:
Additionally, tap water is drinkable in
63
of the regions we visit
27 have initiatives to reduce food and general waste AT LEAST
45
Closer to home, our two main offices, both in the UK, continue to send zero waste to landfill (waste is instead directed to waste to energy plants).
• Over the next year, we will continue to work with our suppliers towards our goal of eliminating directly provided single use plastic on 95% our trips, by the end of 2025.
• We will also be updating our pre-departure customer communications, to more effectively engage our travellers in reducing waste on their holidays.
• In our office, our Staff Representative Committee will spearhead efforts to engage staff in waste reduction both in the office and at home.
• Into 2026, we will then focus on our indirect suppliers and understand the viability of reducing single-use plastics across the hotels and restaurants our trips visit, where we or our local operator partners have the influence to do so.
• We will turn our focus to food waste, to understand our impact and reduction opportunities in this area.
PROGRESS: GOAL:
Pursuing science-aligned decarbonisation
OVER THE LAST YEAR, WE’VE SEEN A 3% REDUCTION IN OUR PER PASSENGER CARBON FOOTPRINT, AND A 30% REDUCTION SINCE 2019.
This has primarily been driven by external decarbonisation, e.g. of fuel and regional energy supply, as well as a simplification of our product portfolio over the last five years, with a growing focus on premium and specialist adventures. Additionally, a far-reaching consolidation of our office spaces has significantly reduced our scopes 1 and 2.
Over the last year, we have continued developing our science-aligned decarbonisation roadmaps for each scope, and have been undertaking feasibility investigations to further refine these roadmaps. We have also increased the accuracy of our trip carbon measurement to better inform our decarbonisation
efforts, and we continue to publish a ‘carbon label’ for each of our trips, to provide our customers with transparent information on our carbon impact.
Through our partnership with Byway, we offer train trips to our European destinations. Though the number of our customers booking train travel in 2024 was relatively small, we saw a 15% increase in customers booking the train to their Exodus trips via Byway. With regards to in-trip carbon emissions, our local operators reported that in 2024, 12% of Exodus itineraries were amended in order to help reduce emissions, while 7% of our trips utilise electric vehicles.
Meanwhile, a number of our local operators are taking their own climate action; 37% have a company climate action policy in place, while 35% have set carbon reduction targets.
NEXT STEPS:
IN 2025, OUR DECARBONISATION ACTIVITY HAS 3 KEY FOCUSES:
Upskilling, engaging and equipping our product team on integrating the consideration of carbon impact into the trip design process.
Using the more granular trip carbon data we now have to identify opportunities to select lower carbon transport for our itineraries.
Seeking actual energy and carbon data from key accommodation to refine our measurement and inform accommodation selection going forward.
We also plan to revise our website content around train travel, to better engage and inform our customers in getting the train to our trips. In a recent customer survey, 65% of our customers said they are more interested in travelling by train than 5 years ago, and 29% said they’d chosen to travel by train to a holiday abroad last year; we want to better respond to this growing interest.
EXODUS & HEADWATER GHG REPORT SUMMARY: FY19, FY23 & FY24.
TOTAL CARBON FOOTPRINT
TRIP CARBON
(Inc. international flights sold by Exodus/HW) Intensity - tCO2e per passenger
HOLIDAY EMISSIONS
Our carbon measurement is supported by consultancy expertise and the methodology used is aligned with GHG protocol. As carbon accounting best practices evolve, and our own data capture process improves, we always consider whether historical data should be recalculated to ensure our carbon reporting is as complete, transparent and representative as possible. As such, our FY19 and FY23 trip carbon footprint measurement underwent some further improvement versus what was reported in last year’s impact report.
PROGRESS: GOAL:
Protecting animals and endangered species
CURRENTLY, 40% OF OUR TRIPS INCLUDE ANIMAL EXPERIENCES OR INTERACTIONS, FROM WILDLIFE ENCOUNTERS OR VIEWING, TO WORKING ANIMALS, SANCTUARY OR ANIMAL CHARITY VISITS.
In 2024, we conducted a Product Impact Audit, which included mapping these experiences across our adventures. This allowed us to have a greater understanding of how our customers and operators interact with animals on our adventures and gives us the data we need to undertake an animal welfare audit in 2025.
NEXT STEPS:
Our Citizen Science Departures and our Foundation funding have enabled us to extend our support for wildlife conservation and restoration, including of endangered species in particular. Read these sections later in the report for more detail.
In the coming year, we will be building an animal welfare audit, to assess the animal experiences across our trips against our animal welfare policy.
In 2025, our Foundation will be expanding its’ funding for projects which support communities to protect key species globally.
SPOTLIGHT
Tiger Habitat Project
LOCATION: INDIA
BACKGROUND: In the Bandhavgarh National Park, the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh is home to one of the last concentrations of Bengal Tigers on Earth. Despite being declared a Tiger Reserve in 1968, the tigers are facing the threat of poaching and encroachment on their land by the many villages surrounding the park.
IMPACT 2024: In the periphery of the Jairasi and Pandrapani villages, there are dense lantana thickets, which are a great hiding and grazing spot for tigers – however, this is causing conflict between tigers and the local villages. In 2024, we funded the removal of 10 hectares of lantana thickets to help reduce conflict, as well as to understand the presence of species before and after the uprooting of the lantana through a biodiversity survey.
We also provided a Community Kickstart grant to fund programmes to raise awareness among school children on topics such as tiger conservation and the significance of biodiversity.
FIND OUT
GOAL:
PROGRESS:
Supporting land and ocean-based nature restoration and carbon removal
2024 MARKED THE THIRD YEAR OF OUR LONG-TERM PARTNERSHIP WITH REWILDING EUROPE, AS WE CONTINUED TO SUPPORT THEIR REWILDING WORK IN THE ITALIAN APENNINES, PRIMARILY THROUGH A COMMITMENT TO REWILD 100 SQUARE METRES PER PASSENGER. IN 2024, OUR FUNDING CONTRIBUTED TO:
Rewilding activity undertaken across
519
hectares of ‘nature and carbon corridors’ in the central Apennines
The installation of more than
30
300
Continued management of Castel Madama Rewilding Reserve’s tonnes CO2 removed and stored
bear-human conflict prevention measures hectares
IMPACT ACROSS 7 GLOBAL BLUE CARBON PROJECTS IN YEAR 1 OF PARTNERSHIP:
Our ‘Italian Apennines – Walks & Wildlife’ trip continues to enable travellers to learn about rewilding while enjoying a little-explored corner of Italy. We continue to donate all profits from these departures to further fund this work.
2024 also saw the launch of a three-year partnership with Blue Marine Foundation, alongside our sister brands across the Travelopia group. Together, we are supporting seven blue carbon projects globally, contributing to the conservation and restoration of thousands of hectares of vital marine ecosystems and the removal of thousands of carbon tonnes.
30
hectares of blue carbon habitat restored
NEXT STEPS:
During 2025, we will be supporting the rewilding of 300 further hectares of land in the central Apennines, plus further monitoring and measures to help protect the Marsican brown bear and other local wildlife.
Sightings of rare and endangered wildlife in project areas
150
113
community members upskilled and engaged in marine restoration
12,500
mangrove trees planted
In the second year of our partnership with Blue Marine Foundation, key aims include:
• Training up to 40 community members in ocean restoration in the Philippines.
• Researching the blue carbon potential of Posidonia seagrass in Greece.
• Employing community members to plant 13,000 native mangrove trees in Kenya.
• Sharing a mangrove educational module with schools and resorts in Maldives.
Increasing the ways our itineraries support the protection and restoration of nature
PROGRESS: GOAL:
THE MAJORITY OF EXODUS’ ADVENTURES HEAVILY FEATURE BEAUTIFUL NATURAL LANDSCAPES, WILDLIFE, AND NATURE-BASED EXPERIENCES. IN 2024, 32% OF OUR TRIPS MORE PROACTIVELY SUPPORTED NATURE CONSERVATION AND/OR RESTORATION.
Half of Exodus itineraries visit areas that are rarely visited or featured on other travel itineraries in the same regions, reducing the impact of tourism on natural landscapes. Meanwhile 57% of our suppliers confirmed they have some type of nature restoration policy or practices in place to help conserve nature in their regions, such as supporting nature restoration programmes, partnering with local schools and national park authorities, engaging employees in reforestation volunteering, and providing training for both suppliers and tour guides.
In 2024, we ran our Citizen Science Departures across 13 destinations globally. These are specific departures of Exodus trips on which we enable our customers to collect environmental DNA data samples from freshwater samples. Capable of tracking species for up to a square mile around the sample site, the samples are then analysed by NatureMetrics and the results submitted to the IUCN’s global eBioAtlas – in turn helping inform their red list of endangered species and global conservation initiatives. In 2024, 78 samples were taken across 13 countries, with 787 species detected, and 7 IUCN red list species, including endangered species such as the Fire Salamander and Military Macaw. 100% of this data has been shared with the IUCN.
Examples of nature conservation projects our trips visit...
Maldives
Maldives Whale Shark Research Programme assists marine conservation through whale shark safaris.
Uganda
Bigodi Wetland Sanctuary offers community-led conservation in the Kibale region.
Namibia
Rhino conservation supported through expert-led tracking in Otjiwa.
Baracoa Project promotes education around biodiversity of endangered species.
Portugal Cuba
Júnior Jacques Farm supports reforestation by planting medronho trees.
India
Wildlife SOS supports elephant rescue, rehabilitation, and conservation.
NEXT STEPS:
In 2025, we are continuing our Citizen Science Departures across 10 Exodus destinations, including our first time taking eDNA samples in Chile, and we are improving pre-departure information for these particular trips. Our aim is to derive above-average sustainability-related customer feedback scores on these departures.
We are reviewing our trips to understand how many include ‘stand out’ experiences which simultaneously support the natural environment in their destinations. We intend to use this data to enhance our customer engagement around these experiences and seek out opportunities to increase these across other trips.
We will continue offering our supplier partners the opportunity to apply for small grants to invest in local nature conservation and restoration initiatives through our Foundation’s Community Kickstart Project (see goal on support of grassroots initiatives).
THRIVING PEOPLE
Mountain Lioness Project
LOCATION: TANZANIA
BACKGROUND: In 2020, we partnered with the Robertson Outdoor Bursary (ROB), an NGO in Tanzania, to launch the Mountain Lioness Scholarship to fund 30 female guides in the skills they need to lead treks up Mount Kilimanjaro.
IMPACT 2024: In August, we fulfilled our commitment, with all 30 female guides completing their training. We’ve also committed to training an additional 5 women per year for each of the next 3 years.
We also provided funding to help facilitate the ROBs Guiding and Sustainability conference which brought together all Mountain Lionesses and other key stakeholders. The aim of the conference was to hear first-hand about the Lionesses’ progress since they were awarded the scholarship, and how it has positively changed their lives.
Furthermore, we started to fund a ‘Becoming Even Better’ programme which provides training for all 30 women to increase their mountain guiding skills and employability. The course covers advanced guiding skills, first aid, team management and customer service. In November, 7 lionesses attended the training, and the remaining lionesses will attend the programme in 2026.
GOAL:
Creating employment and income generation opportunities for destination communities
PROGRESS:
IN 2024, 92% OF NIGHTS ON EXODUS TRIPS WERE IN LOCALLY OWNED ACCOMMODATIONS (VS. 94% IN 2023) AND 87% OF MEALS SERVED AT LOCALLY OWNED RESTAURANTS (VS. 81% IN 2023).
FOR HEADWATER, 88% OF NIGHTS ON HEADWATER TRIPS WERE IN LOCALLY OWNED ACCOMMODATIONS (VS. 77% IN 2023).
There are many other ways in which our trips continued to provide economic empowerment to local communities in 2024, such as visits to women’s cooperatives in Morocco and Jordan, visits to small, remote villages in Kyrgyzstan and Albania, and food and craft markets in Namibia, Vietnam and Italy.
NEXT STEPS:
Over the next year, we would like to develop our method for better understanding as well as calculating the local economic impact of our trips.
Additionally, 10% of the accommodation on Exodus trips are homestays, delivering economic impact directly to local families often with a modest income, while providing a memorable, authentic experience for our customers.
This year, we will be refreshing and relaunching our Destination Community Council, a community of our operator and leader partners from across the world, who provide a representative voice for our destination communities. They help advise and guide our sustainability and impact activity to ensure effectiveness.
In 2025, our Foundation will be expanding its funding for projects which enhance employment and engagement opportunities through conservation and nature-based tourism.
Empowering disadvantaged and under-represented communities
PROGRESS:
WE ARE COMMITTED TO FINDING MEANINGFUL WAYS TO EMPOWER DISADVANTAGED AND UNDER-REPRESENTED COMMUNITIES THROUGHOUT OUR TRIPS AND WITHIN OUR DESTINATIONS.
Our Foundation also seeks to enhance the ways tourism can support disadvantaged or under-represented communities. See feature sections on our Mountain Lioness, Himalayan Community and Women in Farming Projects.
Additionally, the Exodus ‘Exploration Without Boundaries’ Grants have continued to fund explorers who may have taken alternative routes to acquire the skills necessary to conduct their research, giving them an opportunity they may have not accessed elsewhere.
IN 2024:
43
of people directly employed by our trips are women (vs. 35% in 2023).
23
of suppliers are majority owned by women (vs. 19% in 2023).
11
of suppliers employ individuals with mental or physical disability (vs. 16% in 2023).
39
of Exodus trips meet Indigenous people* and/or visit their lands (vs. 59% in 2023).
7
provide employment opportunities for disadvantaged/at risk youth.
27
of Exodus suppliers have policies in place to provide support to Indigenous groups* and/or help protect their land.
* By Indigenous people, we mean those who have distinct social and cultural groups that share collective ancestral ties to the lands and natural resources where they live - and depend on land and natural resources for their identities, cultures, livelihoods, and physical and spiritual well-being.
Women in Farming Project
LOCATION: TANZANIA
BACKGROUND: In 2024, we partnered with KWIECO (The Kilimanjaro Women Information Exchange and Community Organisation) to support a project aimed at empowering women and promoting gender equality in Tanzania through tourism.
IMPACT 2024: This initiative focused on strengthening Wamboma’s community- based social enterprise by integrating local farmers into the tourism and hospitality sectors. Key activities included collaboration with tour operators to develop and refine excursion programmes, hiring a community worker to train and empower women to confidently receive and host tourists and the construction of a fully equipped cultural centre in Namwai village on Mount Kilimanjaro, enabling women to host visitors and showcase local traditions.
The project aimed to create sustainable economic opportunities, preserve local culture, and advance gender equality in the Kilimanjaro region.
14 of suppliers employ people from another minority / underrepresented group (vs. 23% in 2023). of Exodus suppliers employ people from Indigenous communities* (vs. 41% in 2023).
NEXT STEPS:
We are introducing new product development guidelines to further engage and equip our product team to incorporate communityempowering experiences in our itineraries.
We are reviewing our trips to understand how many include ‘stand out’ experiences which simultaneously support disadvantaged or underrepresented communities in their destinations. We intend to use this data to enhance our customer engagement around these experiences and seek out opportunities to increase these across other trips.
Through our Foundation we will continue to provide employment opportunity to women in remote Himalayan regions through our Himalayan Community Project and in Tanzania through our Mountain Lioness Project.
GOAL:
Supporting grassroots initiatives in destinations
PROGRESS:
WE CONTINUE TO SUPPORT GRASSROOTS INITIATIVES THROUGH OUR FOUNDATION’S COMMUNITY KICKSTART PROJECTS.
We offer small grants to our global network of tour leaders, operators and other partners, to support nature and communities to thrive in our destination communities. In 2024, we supported eight Community Kickstart initiatives through our supplier network.
Impact created through these initiatives included:
Maldives
Whale shark research
Costa Rica
Visit to coral restoration lab for students
PEOPLE JOINED AWARENESS CLASSES ABOUT HOW TO PROTECT WHALE SHARKS AND HOW TO COLLECT AND SUBMIT SIGHTING DATA
73
STUDENTS VISITED THE CORAL RESTORATION LAB, RECEIVED AN INTRODUCTORY TALK ABOUT NATIONAL PARKS AND LEARNED ABOUT THE REPRODUCTION PROCESS OF CORAL SPECIES
Permaculture
training for young people
253
CHILDREN RECEIVED SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE TRAINING INCLUDING COMPOSTING, WATER CONSERVATION AND SOIL QUALITY
40
Peru
Porters on the Inca Trail
37
EXODUS PORTERS VISITED MACHU PICCHU WITH A QUECHUAN SPEAKING GUIDE
100+ OF THEM WERE GIVEN A START-UP PACKAGE OF SEEDS AND TOOLS WWW.EXODUS.CO.UK/FOUNDATION/KICKSTART
Read more about all of our past and present Community Kickstart Project initiatives here:
Portugal Zimbabwe
Anti-Poaching Support
Reforestation of Portugal’s old pine forest
NEXT STEPS:
Over the next 3 years, it is our ambition to fund at least 5 grassroots initiatives per year through our Community Kickstart Project. This goal is closely tied to our goal to increase customer donations to our Foundation and will require increasing engagement of our global supplier network to support them in submitting applications for these small grants and overseeing their deployment on the ground.
ANTI-RHINO-POACHING PATROL VEHICLE (FUEL AND MAINTENANCE COSTS)
HECTARES OF FOREST WAS RESTORED
This year, we are optimising our Tour Leader training materials and engagement including encouraging our leaders to communicate more often about Community Kickstart Project initiatives undertaken in their locations.
Himalayan Community Project
LOCATION: NEPAL AND INDIA
BACKGROUND: We have continued to support a number of community-based initiatives across several villages in the Nepalese and Indian Himalaya, through the work of our Himalayan Tour Leader, Valerie Parkinson.
IMPACT 2024: We provided funding for 500 saplings to be planted in Ladakh and equipment for women’s café in Ladakh, so they could operate successfully in the high season. To support the high season too we provided funding towards felting needs to enable the women in the community to develop their needle felting skills and therefore be able to sell their handicrafts to other villagers and tourists.
Another initiative we supported was providing school books and clothes to the Angel’s Children Home. We also supported 3 children in the home who have been studying to become nurses by funding their registration exams - and in 2024, they passed all of their exams.
A further initiative we supported was a Senior Care home in the small town Chautara. For these 17 people, we provided essentials like food to help them through the winter. We also supported the High Altitude Workers Welfare Association by providing education to children of deceased expedition workers or trekking staff who have passed way while working - therefore leaving a family with no income.
Lastly, in Thulopatel, we funded the construction of irrigation systems, road access, and a greenhouse, enabling villagers to cultivate previously unused land and grow perishable crops to sell in local markets.
THRIVING BUSINESS
GOAL:
Operating responsibly and transparently (in line with our B Corp certification)
GOAL:
PROGRESS:
IN JANUARY 2024, WE WERE CERTIFIED AS A B CORPORATION BY PROVING OUR COMMITMENT TO PURPOSE ALONGSIDE PROFIT, AND ACTING FOR THE BENEFIT OF ALL WHO ARE INVOLVED IN OUR ADVENTURES. THE VALUES OF ACCOUNTABILITY, TRANSPARENCY AND CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT ARE INTEGRAL TO THIS CERTIFICATION, AND THROUGH 2024, OUR BUSINESS BENEFITTED FROM THE POLICIES AND PRACTICES WE PUT IN PLACE AS PART OF OUR B CORP JOURNEY.
THIS INCLUDED:
Incorporating our commitment to driving positive social and environmental impact in our articles of association
Improving our parental leave policy – we greatly enhanced paternity pay for new parents to give them a stronger financial footing at a time of significant life change
NEXT STEPS:
In 2025, we are seeking to live up to our B Corp certification in a number of ways, including the integration of B Corp values into our leadership team charter, a more fulsome integration of social and environmental considerations into our trip design and procurement processes, and expanding our programme for engaging staff in our purpose-led values and practices.
Introduced new internal policies including an ethical marketing policy and an ethical procurement policy
Conducted a review and analysis of each of our trip’s carbon footprint and published these figures on our website
Provided staff with more opportunities to use their annual paid volunteering days
Ensuring inclusive language in our job descriptions
We aim to recertify as a B Corp in January 2027. This will be against B Corp’s new set of standards, and we have already started the work of ‘gap analysis’ to identify areas which we will need to implement and improve in order to reach B Corp’s high standards of responsible business (and in conjunction with the cross-industry Travel by B Corp network).
Collaborating cross-industry
PROGRESS:
IN 2024, WE BECAME A MEMBER OF THE TRAVEL BY B CORP NETWORK, A COLLECTIVE OF B CORP TRAVEL COMPANIES WHO COLLABORATE ON EMBEDDING B CORP VALUES AND PRACTICES ACROSS THEIR BUSINESSES AND THE WIDER INDUSTRY.
We also launched a partnership with Kiwano Tourism, to support their work in educating, upskilling and engaging travel professionals in tourism-driven impact. As well as taking part in a number of Kiwano’s learning webinars, we have also spoken at a number of other events sharing our learnings (successes and fails!) with the wider industry. Additionally, we continue to enjoy active membership of ABTA’s Sustainable Tourism and Animal Welfare Committees.
NEXT STEPS:
We will continue to take the opportunity to collaborate across our industry, with a focus for 2025 on helping facilitate an understanding of B Corp’s new standards with the Travel by B Corp community and working with ABTA and industry peers on advocating for more tourism-specific carbon target setting methodology with the SBTi.
Engaging with customers, staff and suppliers
GOAL: PROGRESS:
ALONGSIDE OUR DIRECT ACTIVITY, WE PURSUE POSITIVE IMPACT THROUGH OUR ENGAGEMENT WITH SUPPLIERS, CUSTOMERS AND STAFF.
Our annual supplier sustainability survey for 2024 achieved our best ever response rate; 80% for Exodus and 70% for Headwater. We also launched our ‘supplier benchmarking reports’ for our suppliers, helping bring to life where they were exceeding our wider supplier network in sustainability related activity, and where there is opportunity for improvement – along with suggestions for how to do so.
Focusing on customer engagement last year, our new Thriving Nature, Thriving People strategy helped us to communicate our sustainability and impact activity in a more ‘customer-friendly’, less technical way, aligning more closely with our customers’ on-trip experiences. We track customer perception of our sustainability and impact in our Post-Holiday Evaluation Forms, seeking feedback regarding how customers felt our trip benefitted communities and natural environments, and minimised carbon emissions. In 2023 and 2024, our average score across these areas was 4.28 out of 5, falling a little short of our target of 4.35.
With regards to staff engagement, alongside regular opportunities to update staff on sustainability activity through our various all staff meetings and comms, we undertook a number of ‘sustainability buzz sessions’ to further engage and educate staff in sustainability and impact, including our new B Corp certification.
NEXT STEPS:
In 2025, alongside continued use of our supplier sustainability survey and subsequent benchmarking reports, we will be relaunching our quarterly supplier news communications and refreshing the sustainability content in our Tour Leader and Operator training materials, to better engage and equip our operator partners and tour leaders.
With regards to our customer engagement, we are actively working to improve the sustainability messaging throughout our customer journey – pre-departure, on trip and upon return. We are also seeking to improve our customer communications around travelling responsibly, to better inform and equip our customers to travel with lower impact.
Through the aforementioned initiatives, we aim to increase customers’ scores for social and environmental impact on their holiday evaluation forms to 4.35 out of 5.
Internally, we will continue to identify what areas of sustainability our employees are most interested in so we can further engage our staff. We will continue to highlight the importance of our Foundation and the initiatives that we fund, encouraging staff to get involved in making pre-tax donations from their salary to the Foundation. Additionally, we will be more proactively encouraging and enabling staff to take their volunteering days to support great causes.
APPENDIX: FOUNDATION
Our Trustees
DIANA TICKELL CHAIR OF TRUSTEES
Diana has a wealth of experience in the charity sector having held senior positions at non-profits such as Barnardo’s and NABS. Diana began her career in the tourism industry and is still a passionate adventurer, enjoying cycling and discovery trips. She has also spent time volunteering in Sierra Leone, gaining a deeper understanding of delivering community-based programmes.
HILARY
An experienced fundraiser with over 20 years’ experience in the not-for-profit sector, Hilary is a corporate partnerships specialist who is passionate about harnessing the power of the private sector to drive positive change in the world. Her career and passion for travel has taken her around the world and she looks forward to sparking the same spirit of adventure in her two young children as they grow up.
RICHARD ISAACS TREASURER
An experienced Finance Director and travel industry professional, having worked with such notable brands as Kuoni and TUI Travel before joining Exodus, Richard has a passion for travel, international development, and sustainability. He is an active member in his local community, notably helping with local school and swimming club accounts, and a keen cyclist.
Giles has extensive experience of financial management and governance across a number of charities both large and small. He is particularly passionate about helping rural communities to thrive and prosper through economic development. Giles is also a regular Exodus client, combining his love of travelling with cycling and trekking.
THOMAS TRUSTEE
GILES TOTTERDELL TRUSTEE
TRUSTEES AND ACCOUNTS
Our Accounts
We have intentionally carried over significant amount of funding in preparation to fund a new area of work in 2025.
For more detailed accounts, please refer to the Accounts and Annual Returns section of the Exodus Adventure Travels Foundation record on the Charity Commission’s register of charities (registered charity number 1182265).
