Our environmental commitment and social responsibility

Learning Journeys is part of the New Zealand Tourism Commitment. We encourage environmentally conscious travel and sustainable business, contributing to restoring, protecting and enhancing our natural environment, ensuring that our natural assets are maintained for future generations – and visitors.

At Learning Journeys we take pride in working with accredited organisations, who aim to reduce our carbon footprint and encourage environmentally sound practises. As an organisation, we are committed to being a leader in sustainability, and constantly look to improve all aspects of our environmental footprint.
 

Our Values

We actively support and help with;

Trees for Survival. This Rotary based project helps students at local high schools grow trees which are then used for planting in the Kopurererua Valley, the largest urban wetland restoration project in the Southern Hemisphere. The aim is to return this 300 hectare reserve to its original state. So far, over 220,000 trees have been planted by Tauranga City Council in partnership with several organisations including Centennial Trust, a Rotary project set up initially during Simon’s time as president of his club. Learning Journeys is currently looking at how they can increase their contribution to this project with the idea of making the company ‘carbon neutral’ in the future.
 

Sustainable Dairying. Dairying, along with tourism, is one of New Zealand’s two largest earners of foreign currency. Fonterra, a local company is the largest exporter of milk powder in the World. This comes at an environmental cost. Learning Journeys runs field trips for New Zealand and overseas secondary schools, looking at how dairy farming can be made more environmentally friendly. Working closely with a certified organic dairy farm in the Waikato, students are introduced to sustainable dairy practices and provide native tress for riparian planting. By doing so they help reduce the leaching of nutrients (nitrogen, phosphates etc) into streams and groundwater supplies.

Coast Care. Urban sprawl and beach activities have created many erosion problems for coastal communities. Working with Coast Care and Bay of Plenty Regional Council, many of our school groups are actively involved in dune planting and restoration in the Bay of Plenty region.

• Electric Vehicles. With so many trips into town and local schools being less than 100 kms, it made sense to invest in a brand-new Nissan Leaf 3. With 85% of New Zealand’s power produced from renewable energy sources such as hydro, wind and geothermal, this significantly reduces Learning Journeys ‘carbon’ footprint and compliments our use of solar energy for producing hot water.

• Energy efficient lighting throughout our office, all our computers are on timers and we have installed skylights.

• We have recently replaced our fleet with new models and only hire late model vehicles on tour, train our drivers on efficient and safe driving techniques and ensure we operate with correct vehicle tyre pressures, which all help reduce fuel emissions 

• We are licensed concessionaires with DOC and a portion of all tour payments go towards DOC park management. Learning Journeys also works closely with NZ's Department of Conservation to ensure that our impact on NZ's National Parks and reserves is minimal.  

• We operate on a paperless system, where we are committed to reducing our paper usage by 90%. The remaining 10% used for our safety practises while on tour, gets recycled.  

• We educate and train all of our staff about Learning Journeys environmental values and policies which will ensure environmental practices are in place such as recycling, waste reduction, and actively ask our staff and clients for suggestions to improve this.

• Our sustainable policies are continuously reviewed by our 'in house' environmental manager.

• We have a no unnecessary waste policy, so if it can be repurposed or rehomed, composted or recycled, we will make every effort to do so. • We only use reusable bags, containers, cups, plates and cutlery on tour.

 

If you have an ideas, comments or suggestions on how we could improve our environmental and sustainable practices we would love to hear from you, get in touch here