PRESERVING our PLAYGROUND
Iceland’s wilderness is unique in many ways, perhaps most of all because it remains largely intact and undisturbed. With recent explosive growth in adventure tourism, this fragile environment is being subjected to unprecedented strain. At Arctic Adventures, we are committed to sharing our love and respect for our great outdoors with every one of our guests through one-of-a-kind wilderness experiences. Leading by example, we continue to set standards in Iceland’s young adventure industry in hope of promoting attitudes and practices that will keep our wilderness thriving in future generations. As a dedicated member of the Iceland Carbon Fund and other conservation organizations, we are proud offer net-zero emissions trips, and are continually striving towards new and creative ways to evolve in harmony with our beautiful wilderness.
Policy Aims:
Our mission statement is simply: “Nature is the adventure”. Through it we have tailored all our trips in such a way that they do not harm or effect the nature. We always inform all our clients of how to take part and pass through nature without leaving a mark.
Our four guidelines are:
Take nothing but pictures.
Kill nothing but time.
Leave nothing but footprints.
Make nothing but memories.
Environmental Responsibility:
2013, Arctic is in the process of getting the Green Globe Certification.
When we need transport between places or transfer of luggage or supplies we offset the carbon emission through the Icelandic Carbon fund.
We recycle as much of our waste as possible. Both at our office, at our basecamps, in our restaurant and on tours we take all waste with us and dispose of it after the trip.
We always buy ecological labelled products and all our printed material has the Nordic Eco-Label which is the official ecological label of the Nordic Countries. In Iceland the Nordic Ecolabel is hosted by the Environment Agency of Iceland, Umhverfisstofnun, and it has a wide spread acknowledgement and trust amongst Nordic consumers.
On our treks through the magnificent Icelandic nature we place a heavy emphasis on our Leave No Trace Policy.
At the start of every trip we will provide participants with information on how best to pass through without leaving their mark, so future generations can visit these special places in their natural state. Each trip has a different approach, f.ex. a cave trip and raft trip have different foucs points.
We run our own guide school here in Iceland where we train all our own guides. They are all passionate about their environment and its conservation. Environmental matters are kind of imprinted in all Icelanders. We are the only nation that depends solely on renewable energies for heating our houses and creating electricity (no fossil fuels except for cars). The conservation of electricity here in Iceland is therefore not the same big issue as elsewhere in Europe. We also have an abundant supply of water since we have very much rain- and snowfall. In addition to that the Icelandic nature is so unspoiled that all running water in Iceland is fit for drinking, right out of the rivers and streams. Hence, bottled water is not an environmental concern, it is not used on any of our trips.