ENGAGEMENT & Communication Goals

To help achieve our wider strategy, we have set ourselves some goals in relation to engagement with our different stakeholder groups. Here we report on progress against these goals.

Goal:

AREA OF IMPACT: Customers

PROGRESS: In our 2022 client survey, 72% of respondents across our Exodus Travels UK and North America brands and our Headwater customers agreed that we were a socially and environmentally responsible business.

We revised the sustainability-related question on our Holiday Evaluation Form to get a better understanding of how much clients know and engage in our sustainability activity. (See chart)

NEXT STEPS: Our UK customers are far more likely to agree than those of Headwater or Exodus North America clients are less aware and this is where we need to focus extra attention across the months ahead.

From our Holiday Evaluation Forms, we can see that our benefit is clearest for communities and then the places we visit. We have some work to do to show our customers the actions we are taking to reduce our carbon impact.

We are looking to update and improve how we share information on the impact we make.

Minimised CO2 emissions options, locally sourced food,

Benefitted conservation,

Benefitted the communities support, employment

Goal:

BETTER ENGAGE AND EDUCATE STAFF ON OUR SUSTAINABILITY ACTIVITY, POLICIES AND MESSAGING

AREA OF IMPACT: Staff

PROGRESS: Frequent all-staff communications, a monthly sustainability section in our monthly all staff meeting and an annual staff survey enables us to keep staff updated on our sustainability activity.

Within a month of starting, all new hires are also given an induction on our sustainability work and a crib sheet for them to take away for easy reference. A number of staff further engage in our sustainability goals through our Foundation’s fundraising campaigns.

In June 2022, we launched a programme called ‘Ecosystem Advocates’ that we had hoped would enable many more staff to proactively engage with our sustainability agenda. We encouraged staff to identify ways in which their ‘business as usual’ remit could help deliver on our goals or take on additional tasks or workstreams in areas they are passionate about.

Despite a high profile and fanfare launch, the programme was not well received in a year when teams were being stretched and rebuilt post Covid.

NEXT STEPS: We know that staff are keen to support our Foundation activities and we will be doing a number of things to encourage their involvement in early 2023. Actions to offer the Foundation as a recipient for payroll giving and match funding employee donations are in process. We have set ourselves a target to triple our donor income by 2025, from 2020 levels.

On reflection, our overall communication of the Ecosystem Advocates programme to internal staff wasn’t as efficient as it could have been. Our teams do not want to feel that they are being asked to do more on top of their busy workloads. Everyone in the business is already working to ensure that we can offer the best adventure holidays run responsibly, so we are looking to find a clearer way to embed these actions in personal KPIs.