Initiative 1 | B Corp Certification by 2026
Initiative 2 | Audit and Assess our Business Operations and Impact
Initiative 3 | 1% For The Planet
More to come...
Initiative 1 | B Corp Certification by 2026
B Corps have been growing steadily, but what are they? And what does this mean?
'B' Corp stands for 'BENEFIT' Corporation. Certified B Corps balance profit with people and the planet. They aim to create an inclusive, equitable and regenerative economy for all.
This is a goal and vision that we at SwimTrek can get behind!
As a result, over the next 3 years we will be starting to implement organisational improvements, setting the goal of becoming B Corp certified and registered by 2026.
Why B Corp?
There are a number of benefits of becoming a B Corp organisation. One of the key motivations for us at SwimTrek is the ethos and vision that the B Corp movement facilitates.
An equitable and inclusive future, which supports and sustains the planet, is frankly the future of business and a way forward that we want to join and promote.
There are now over 6000 B Corps registered globally in over 89 countries.
But what does this mean in practice?
Becoming a B Corp doesn’t just mean you apply a standard or certification or badge to your business. Rather, it is an overhaul of the way you do business for your employees, contractors, suppliers and customers.
It is a globally recognised business movement that aims to engender change and re-imagine our understanding of purpose and profit.
As a process, B Corp provides a recognized Environmental, Social and Governance assessment that interrogates an organization across 5 pillars of operations.
Enhancing policies and practices pertaining to our mission, ethics, accountability and transparency.
Ensuring that we are contributing toward our employees’ financial, physical, professional, and social well-being.
Operating with a mandate to contribute to the economic and social well-being of the communities in which we operate.
Improving our overall approach to environmental stewardship.
Continuously striving to improve the value that we create for our customers.
Through using the BLAB online assessment resource, an organisation can measure where it currently stacks up when questioned on these 5 pillars. This can also be used to analyse a business across 200 data points to provide a B Corp scoring.
To qualify to attempt an audit a business must score higher than 80 (this may not seem much, but it is a tall order for any company to achieve). Upon auditing, B Corp will interrogate each policy and process within the business to ensure you are true to your word and worthy of certification, or not.
Taking this as a serious goal we realistically envisage a 3-year process to overhaul our business policies, processes and operations. It is our aim to complete an auditing round within the next 3 years. Watch this space as we update on improvements to the ways we run our business in the coming months.
Find out more about B Corps here.
Find out more about SwimTrek's sustainability ambitions and plans and B Corp goals here.
Initiative 2 | Audit and Assess our Business Operations and Impact
In 2023 we plan on creating our baseline.
We will be assessing and defining our global business impacts and getting to grips with the Carbon cost of operating. Like all other businesses, through our operations we generate a range of impacts. At present these are unquantified, uncosted and the range of impacts are both known and unknown.
Also, like many other businesses we want to start to remedy this whilst at the same time both acknowledging and amending our practices to account more appropriately for our presence in the communities and environments we visit.
There is an environmental cost to doing business that needs to be accounted for. There are various ways of doing this, but first let’s define what we’re quantifying.
Calculating Our Impact - Scope 1 2 and 3 emissions (Source: https://www.earth.sage.com/blog/scope1-scope2-scope3-emissions)
CO2e
When we talk about Carbon emissions, we are really speaking about 7 different gasses that make up CO2 equivalent. These various gases impact global temperature change at different rates. Different activities from running a boat, to a power station providing electricity to a hotel result in different quantities of various gases being produced. For simplicity they are all wrapped up in the term ‘CO2e’. You will see this in various businesses reporting on sustainability measurements.
Scope 1 emissions relate to a business’s direct emissions. The operating costs of a company's facilities. Running an office and any vehicles owned by the company.
Scope 2 emissions refer to indirect emissions such as electricity used to service our office and facilities
Scope 3 emissions – this refers to everything else and is the biggest challenge for a business to account for and quantify.
At SwimTrek we contract more than 200 supplies (hoteliers, boat operators, Destination management companies) in over 50 locations and 21 countries annually. Different locations use a variety of services; from the types of accommodations we provide, to the availability and type of boats we operate.
Assessing the impacts of these various operations is a complex and lengthy process, but one we’re committed to. Understanding and quantifying our carbon costs is just the first step though. Once we know the amount of CO2e we’re responsible for, we can identify and prioritise the most important abatement mechanisms.
We all know about the challenges posed by rising carbon emissions and the devastating knock-on effects to the planet. The IPCC has reiterated again this year the importance of mitigating the growing global temperature increase along with the diminishing window of time available to tackle this. However, if all current global policies are enacted and enforced, we will still overshoot the global target of limiting warming to 1.5 degree change resulting in irrevocable ecosystem change.
There is no time to wait for carrot or stick policy amendments that affects change, instead behavioural change must come from individuals, businesses and global movements creating their own processes for improvement.
Action over Inertia
Whilst Measurement tools are important - creating for ourselves a set of data and metrics by which we can both offset our current impacts, as well as identifying the best opportunities for change integral to long term ambitions - we also want to encourage action and immediate response.
The whole sustainability discussion can drive inertia as it is incredibly complicated to navigate. Nonetheless, without waiting for reports and audits we can start to make marked improvements that serve to reduce our impacts today.
As the weeks and months roll on, we’ll be detailing these in this blog.
Initiative 3 | 1% For The Planet
SwimTrek is giving back 1% of all sales (not profits) to environmental causes.
To make a change in the way we do business we want to illustrate our commitment to protecting the planet and putting our money where our mouth is.
We have partnered with 1% For The Planet to ensure that as our business continues to grow, we can attempt to serve to encourage a more positive environmental impact. 1% For The Planet membership is a commitment to accountability, partnership building and doing better for both people and the planet.
We’re proud to give 1% of our annual revenue back to environmental partners - those who are working on today’s most pressing climate issues. We want this statement to show that not just this earth day, but everyday we will support commitments to environmental initiatives that support conservation and regeneration.
The climate crisis disproportionately impacts global populations. Ensuring future generations can thrive is paramount and must be approached through addressing environmental and social injustices. At present, only 3% of the total philanthropic giving goes to environmental causes. With the far ranging and global weight of the environmental crisis affecting us and growing, businesses must change and act as stewards of the environment rather than extractors.
This small commitment from us is a start.
