CASA Tours Switchboard

Environmental Sustainability

Posted on March 17th, 2007 by gomez.
Categories: The Apres Ski Lounge.

CASA Tours is dedicated to environmental sustainability throughout our North and South American operations. We recognize that in the adventure travel business, activities like air travel and car travel lead to the emission of carbon gases into the atmosphere, contributing to the influence of global warming. Widespread climate change will have long-term consequences for ecosystem form and function, greatly affecting human populations and how we live on Earth. In terms of the sports of skiing and snowboarding, global climate change may influence the amount of snowfall that accumulates in high elevations throughout the world. Thus, the ski and snowboard community has a stake in the reduction of fossil fuels and other drivers of the climate change phenomenon.

One method of reducing the amount of carbon in the atmosphere is through “carbon offsets”, or the practice of reducing emissions through the development of alternative energy sources or increasing the absorption of greenhouse gases through tree planting / preservation. Trees sequester carbon through photosynthesis, converting carbon dioxide and water into oxygen and plant matter.

CASA Tours practices our carbon offset through the preservation of existing, mature forest lands in Chile and Argentina. The conservation of these areas also provides enormous ecosystem services, by forever placing critical Patagonian habitat into permanent protection. CASA Tours pledged $500 and will contribute 2% of our 2007 profits to The Conservation Land Trust. The Conservation Land Trust is the brainchild of Doug Tompkins (founder of The North Face) and his wife Kris Tompkins (Ex-CEO of Patagonia), who founded the largest privately owned preserve in Chile, Parque Pumalin.

We are also working on minimizing our paper use and using recycled paper products when necessary. In the future, CASA hopes to contribute to the local communities we visit by promoting alternative energy use. We acknowledge the environmental issues we face today, and are working towards a global effort - with many small entities joining forces to create sustainable change.

Jeremy Thomas, CASA Tours Director of Sustainability, was one of the two original founders of CASA Tours, and continues to work professionally as an ecosystem restoration scientist throughout North America. He strives to use CASA Tours as a small business model that demonstrates how progressive environmental sustainability efforts can be profitably integrated into a business.