After winning in the South America's Leading Green Tour Operator category, yesterday Explorandes was named the World’s Leading Green Tour Operator at the World Travel Awards ceremony held in Muscat, Oman. This is the 9th time the company has taken an award on this category: they have now been named as South America’s Leading Green Tour Operator five times, and as the World’s Leading Green Tour Operator four times.
This year, Explorandes’ environmental focus was on reducing plastics usage in their operations by analyzing their entire supply chain and tracking all of the plastic packaging they used in their trekking operations. In considering ways to curtail plastic usage, they developed a new plastic-free policy:
- Explorandes never delivers single-use plastic bottles or bags for any reason.
- Explorandes encourages their partners (hotels, restaurants, etc.) not to offer plastic bottles for water, and to instead offer filtered water or glass bottles.
- Explorandes strongly recommends that its travelers bring canteens or reusable bottles.
- Explorandes offers reusable bags to their travelers so they can use them for shopping during and after their stay.
- Explorandes buys its food and cooking supplies in bulk to avoid the use of plastic packaging.
- Explorandes employ reusable bags and bottles to carry cooking supplies on the treks.