Sustainability Action Plan 2018 – Where are we?

In November last year, during our annual sustainability workshop we had designed a common action plan enabling us to set our priorities for the year. In each Travelife certified country a Sustainability team is involved in the follow up of the implementation of the Sustainability Action Plan. After 9 months, we start to evaluate our work and achievements. This year, we have also been audited by Travelife in Thailand, Laos, Indonesia and Myanmar!

Targets achieved!

• CO2 – automatic carbon offsetting for all domestic and regional flights booked by EXO for our clients.
• Launch of EXO People satisfaction survey and data analysis per country.
• Sharing knowledge – serie of events/training/games has been organized throughout the year with a special focus on Wildlife & Biodiversity
• Travel Consultants – informed and trained on how to promote responsible options to our clients
• Training organized for tour guides including responsible tourism related topics and ChildSafe
• Health & Safety standards have been included in our sustainability inspections checklist.
• We have lists of responsible suppliers for office purchase & gifts, we use them for 70% of our gift purchasing and we strive to reach more.
• EXO Foundation supports bi-annual commissions grassroots projects enabling to give back to local people and/or help to protect the environment
• EXO local teams are involved in various sustainability & tourism networks from IMPACT Vietnam to CSR PATA working group etc.
• We have applied to Virtuoso award and have been nominated, received a TTG award for the most responsible company and have submitted applications to WTTC, CCIFV CSR category, Myanmar Responsible Tourism award etc.

Targets in progress…

Some may be applied only in some countries or they are on the way of being further implemented.

• Thailand & Indonesia have started to design & apply sustainability related tasks/objectives in people’s KPIs and Job Description, a revised list has been worked on and will be shared in countries by beginning of next year,
• Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia have met the criteria of having at least 70% of contracted suppliers signing our Sustainability Addendum. In 2019, our contracting teams will send a revised version of our sustainability addendum to our suppliers, including a mention about setting up refill station.
• In Laos & Myanmar, 10 experiences newly created include major sustainability elements.
• For all countries, we are in the process of implementing newly designed icons that will enable to identify responsible experiences! It will be live before the end of the year.
• In Indonesia and Thailand, the objective will be met but it is still unsure for the other countries.

Targets not reached 

• Paper use – reach below 200 sheets per people per year, we will reach this target for about 50% of our offices (involved in Travelife certification)
• Waste generation – reach below 10kg of waste per people per year, we exceed this target for all destinations…even though it has been a major topic raised in our communications.
• 70% of reduction of plastic in our operations – with the refillable bottles initiative we are seriously reducing our use of plastic water bottles however it is not enough to reach our target. Thus, we have decided to stop using another single -use item, wet towels, from 2019 on-wards.

We will be releasing in our next newsletter our yearly objectives for 2019!