Being sustainable means being responsible
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Why care? The countryside and rural communities of south west England (Wiltshire, Dorset, Somerset, The Cotswolds and Bath) are amazing, living, working places. David and I both grew up here – we live and work here - since beginning Foot Trails we have made a commitment to do all we can to support sustainable practices and run our company in a responsible way.
Visitors are wonderful for the local economy but unless we are responsible too many visitors in rural areas can damage the countryside. We work continuously to progress our own sustainability strategy and we put our company through outside accreditation to see how we are doing.
Foot Trails joined the Green Tourism Business Scheme in 2005 and were the first company in the county to gain a silver award in 2006, followed by the first in the county to achieve gold in 2009.
In 2008 we sought further accreditation - Foot Trails was awarded a "Big Tick for Rural Action" by Business in the Community, a member organisation of the Prince of Wales Charities. A huge honour.The award was given in recognition of the work Foot Trails undertakes to benefit the communities in which we work. We achieved re-accreditation in 2009 and 2010.
In 2010 and 2011 Foot Trails achieved the silver sustainable tourism award amongst tourism business in South West England – at the South West England Excellence awards.
We continue to aim to be the most sustainable walking holiday company in England.
"For Foot Trails sustainability means responsibility. It's a responsibility we can't ignore."
Alison Howell
   
What is Foot Trails doing?
We believe passionately in supporting local rural economies by giving our business to other small rural business like ourselves, which include the transport providers, local country inns, lunchtime pubs and suppliers who contribute to your holidays.
It seems easy for people to say that walking is a green activity, therefore all walking companies must be sustainable – we don´t believe this is true. Working towards sustainability is a continuous journey – often a challenge. It means thinking about everything we do as a company, all our activities and seeing if there´s a way to do it better. It´s about changing things, bit by bit, one small step at a time.
Here are just a handful of the 60+ measures we have introduced to date to your holidays:
- Printing all our brochures and printed materials since 2007 on recycled paper which is 100% chlorine free and with vegetable inks and waterless printing - a process which reduces the need to mix alcohol and water and reduces harmful chemicals
- Introducing e-mail invoicing and administration to reduce our paper use – reducing our brochure from 48 pages in 2010 to 6 pages in 2012, a saving of over 330 000 sheets of paper
- Introducing policies to monitor the number of walkers on a particular trail at one time, so that impact on the local countryside is minimal or nil
- Limiting group walks to 12 guests
- Making it possible for guests who wish to, to travel by public transport to do so by choosing holiday locations with good transport connections, devising car free itineraries and by providing you with travel advice. In 2011 54% of our guests traveled by train
- Locating all our chosen inns within 20 minutes of a railway station so that public transport is an easy option, again to reduce carbon emissions
- Helping to highlight rural English issues through our materials and guides
- Using local paths and trails and avoiding well used national trails
- Building strong partnerships with local inns in small villages and rural communities and other rural suppliers helping to support our local economy
- Supporting and encouraging local inns who serve food made by local producers
- Encouraging visitors to explore sensibly by advising them of the countryside code and local nature
- Aiming to be a pioneer in sustainable tourism – trying new things
- Contributing the expertise and experience of sustainability of our founder to groups and organizations including the steering group of Future Footprints, speaking at the Wire (women in rural enterprise) conference, South West Tourism annual conference, contributing to the South West Tourism educational Guild Free indulgence booklet and engaging in local campaigns such as those to bring rural broadband to Bath and North East Somerset
- Supporting and helping our rural suppliers to make more sustainable choices
- Giving you fair-trade tea, coffee, sugar and cookies so that overseas produces receive a fair price for their products
- Recycling all our office cardboard and paper to reduce the waste in landfill sites
You can help make a difference
If you would like to support our efforts then here are a few simple, no additional cost steps you can take yourself, which will make a huge difference and protect our countryside for future generations.
- Public transport: Why not consider coming to visit us by public transport? Train travel can be much more relaxing, sit with your feet up and read a book and feel smug about all those people stuck in a traffic jam somewhere! All our holidays are located near a train station, and we will advise you of travel times and make sure a taxi meets you when you arrive. And yes, train travel does save a lot of carbon dioxide so you can feel great too!
- E-mail: Tell us your e-mail address and we will keep you in touch by e-mail, which vastly cuts down on the amount of paper we use. E-mail is great because you can receive news from us instantly and reply straight back to us too.
- Buy local: When you are with us, why not visit the local shop in the village where you are staying for any supplies you need during your trip, such as bottles of water or snacks? We provide information about local facilities and stores in your information pack before you arrive and many sell delicious cakes and local produce too! We also visit some local producers during some of our holidays, selling for example local cider or apple brandy which you can buy and take home. Yummy!
"For Foot Trails sustainability means responsibility. It's a responsibility we can't ignore." Alison Howell
"For Foot Trails sustainability means responsibility. It's a responsibility we can't ignore."
Alison Howell
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