Nutty’s Adventures – Sustainable Tourism

Nutty’s Adventures is totally committed to the concept of Community-Based Tourism; tourism that will bring benefit to all parties involved. This means working closely with small rural communities, often in quite remote parts of the country.  By their nature, these communities and the environment in which they are located are fragile. Therefore, if benefits are to be derived by the communities, the company and our customers in the long term, serious concrete steps must be taken to safeguard the communities and their natural environments; steps to protect them from physical and cultural degradation. It is therefore a prerequisite of CBT that it be sustainable. 

• Low impact – the numbers of visitors to each community are kept small by rotating arrivals among a number of different communities.
• Each party of arrival is kept small (6-8 persons)
• All clients are briefed in advance on how to behave in a culturally sensitive way during their stay in the village
• Community enterprises that strengthen the cohesion of the community are supported
• Clients are encouraged to support the local economy
• Wherever possible we try to create additional employment in the community to help keep families together and provide alternatives to illegal or detrimental activities.
• We promote local culture and traditions to help keep them alive for future generations.

• Hand in hand with instilling pride in their traditional culture heritage, we endeavor to instill pride among community members in their natural heritage as well, as the two are often intimately entwined. With pride in these aspects of their life that visitors have come half away round the world to experience, will come the desire to preserve them.
• The additional employment and economic stimulus that visitors will bring may reduce harmful activities such as illegal logging and poaching and so aid in the aim of environmental protection.
• All food is purchased locally, to boost the local economy and reduce any impact on the environment.
• All local transport employed is low impact village transport
• Trekking, kayaking, rafting and cycling are major activities in many of our programmes
• A commitment to protecting and sustaining local cultures and environments will amount to nothing if we do not also do what we can to protect the global environment upon which all else depends.
• All office practices are geared to reducing consumption and waste (water, electricity, paper, consumer and household items). This makes good economic as well as environmental sense.
• All staff live by this code of limiting consumption and waste in their everyday lives, not just in the office
• All our tours are structured in a way to reduce their environmental impact and all associated transport also, with a heavy reliance on public surface transport rather than flights or private transport.

Main targets for 2018-2020:

• Reduce electricity consumption. - Electricity consumption has risen by 13% while total staff has increased by 15%
• Reduce water consumption. -Water consumption has fallen by 5% even though total staff has increased by 15%
• Increase the amount of recycled paper used in the office to 100% by the middle of 2019 - achieved
• Reduce paper use in the office 20% by the middle of 2019 – not achieved due to increase in business 
• Research sources of paper from sustainably managed forests by July 2019 - not found in Thailand so far.
• Purchase tea/coffee from local communities by September 2017 - achieved
• Research sources of sustainably produced office supplies by July 2019 - not found in Thailand so far.
• Switch to non-hazardous cleaning materials by October 2017 - achieved
• Look for ways to further reduce electricity consumption by 10% by the middle of 2019 – ongoing
• Support a reforestation scheme to offset CO2 emissions resulting from our electricity consumption/travel by the middle of 2019 – will be achieved by late 2020
• Fix aerators to all taps by August 2017 – achieved
• Eliminate all single-use plastic from the office by 2019 – achieved

• Add sexual harassment and a ban on illegal handicrafts to our Clients’ Codes of Conduct – achieved
• Circulate Code of Best Practices for Partner Agencies by the end of 2018 – code completed and distributed
• Draw up a contract detailing our sustainability requirements and have it signed by all partner agencies by the end of 2019 – first phase achieved
• Circulate Code of Best Practices for Accommodation Providers to major hotel accommodation providers by the end of 2018 – code completed and distributed
• Draw up a contract detailing our sustainability requirements and have it signed by major accommodation providers by the end of 2019 – first phase achieved
• Create Destination Folders to keep track of each destination sustainability record by the end of 2019 – achieved
• Formulate and put in place Procedures in Case of Emergency – achieved
• Add client feedback form with reference to sustainability to our website - achieved

• Keep formal records of our conformity with our sustainably policy and goals.
• Continue research into sources of paper from sustainably managed forests
• Continue research into sustainably produced office supplies
• Fully establish our support a reforestation scheme to offset CO2 emissions resulting from our electricity consumption and business travel
• Implement self-evaluation of their sustainability achievements by partner agencies
• Implement self-evaluation of their sustainability achievements by accommodation suppliers 
• Implement self-evaluation by excursion suppliers
• Summarise the sustainability status of accommodations, excursions and activities in each area for sales and marketing purposes
• From the Destination Information folders create trip notes to explain the nature, culture and heritage of each destination
• Create specific destination do’s and don’ts for the Destination information folders 

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