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Sustainability at Inside Travel Group
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InsideJapan Tours is part of Inside Travel Group (ITG). As a certified B Corp, we believe that our trips make a positive difference in the world and that by choosing to travel with us, you are supporting our destinations and the people who live there. We feel a deep sense of responsibility to the places and people we work with and to the wider planet. That’s why we’re working to maximise the good that travel does and encourage longer, deeper and more meaningful trips that work in harmony with our destinations.
So that’s our mission. But what are we doing about it?
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We're Taking Climate Action
We measure and report on our carbon emissions every year and have a transparent Climate Action Plan in place;
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We’ve measured every part of our carbon emissions as a company (including your trip’s). We have a plan to reduce them by 50% by 2030.
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Each year, we will make changes to how we work and who we work with in order to lower our emissions in line with global targets.
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As a certified CarbonNeutral® company, all our trips are fully offset thanks to verified sustainable development projects across Asia - like the award-winning biogas project in rural Vietnam and renewable wind power in India. Since 2020, we’ve offset over 8000 tonnes of carbon emissions with Climate Impact Partners, and by the end of 2023, that number will reach approximately 60,000 tonnes in emissions reductions.
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In December 2020, we declared a Climate Emergency, joining the Tourism Declares movement. In November 2021, we were a founding signatory of the Glasgow Declaration. We work alongside like-minded businesses to find on climate solutions for the travel industry.
Read more about Our Climate Commitment.
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We have a positive local impact
Our trips visit some of Japan’s remotest places, working through community-based tourism to support local people across the country. Our trips are designed around getting beneath the surface – by staying longer and exploring deeper.
One of our biggest commitments has been to Give Back 5% of our operating profits to charities in our branch countries that support struggling families take a well-deserved holiday.
In addition, since 2018 we have enabled our clients to donate over £25,000 to Second Harvest Japan, a food bank charity in Tokyo, by sending their used transport cards to the charity. Any leftover credit is converted into cash in our IC Card Donation scheme.
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We're B Corp certified
B Corp represents the highest standard for evaluating a business’s commitments not only to the environment but also to a wide range of social and economic concerns. Becoming B Corp certified is the first step in a long journey, rather than a destination in and of itself.
Read more about our B Corp journey and why it matters
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We're Travelife Partner
The Travelife standard is the leading sustainability certification scheme in the travel industry, supported by ABTA. Through achieving Travelife Partner certification in all four of our global offices we have been able to systematically review our sustainability and responsible tourism procedures, covering over 150 criteria for each office (that's over 600 in total).
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How are we doing?
Pretty well! Here are some of our recent commitments fulfilled:
- Became a certified B Corp - the only certification that measures a company’s entire social and environmental performance
- Becoming Travelife Partner accredited in all of our offices
- Becoming a certified CarbonNeutral® company (2 years ahead of our 2025 target)
- Producing our Climate Action Plan and becoming a founding signatory of the Glasgow Declaration
- Switching our Bristol office to run on renewable energy and reducing our global office emissions by 73% vs. 2019"
- Beginning partnerships with our Giving Back Charities and raising over £2000 on ITG Gives Back Day
You can read our full Impact Report for 2022 here, including our approach for 2023.
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What we're working on
We have been working hard to be the best business for our people, customers, communities and the planet, but we're far from finished. Our next aims are to:
- Improving our B Corp score (80.3 points) to above 90 points when we recertify in 2026.
- Reducing our emissions by 50% by 2030.
- Audit all our itineraries on our website to identify where we can make climate-positive changes to them.
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Tell us your views
As a travel company that encourages people to fly around the world to visit incredible places (and bring a host of benefits too), we know that just by talking about sustainability we’re opening ourselves up to criticism of greenwashing.
We see it as our responsibility to engage with the challenges we face and we’re not going to shy away from them. We also know that it’s the right thing to do.
We would love to hear from you if you have comments, ideas and questions about our sustainability commitments to help us improve what we do. Just email [email protected].
We’re not perfect and we don’t know all the answers, but that’s what gives us the motivation to get up every day and do better. We’re always open to debate, discuss and collaborate with our partners and our competitors. We are stronger together. And we need to act.
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See our full Policies and Procedures
Policies may sound boring, but they’re vital to ensure that we have a systemised approach to sustainability and responsible tourism issues across the globe, and that we comply with best practice. See our latest Sustainability-related policies below:
Inside Japan UK office
Inside Japan US office
Inside Japan Australia office
Inside Japan - Japan office
