Sustainable enterprise
Sustainable entrepreneurship is a form of business in which people, the community and nature are taken into account in all steps of generating economic performance. This is a process, which continues to be tinkered with continuously.
Nepal Inside Out and its team is committed to offering sustainable and responsible travel. This includes respecting local people, culture and nature in all our trips. But we go one step further: we really do bring a positive economic and social impact too!
We do this in various ways, each of which contributes in a small way to the well-being of local people, nature and the economy. Via this link, you can already find more concrete ways in which we and also you as travellers can travel with a greater positive impact.
Travelife certified agency until 2025.
From the start of our company in 2015, sustainability was an integral part of our business plan. For us, it was the only way we wanted to do business in the tourism industry! Quite a challenge where we could use some support.
To reinforce our intention, we contacted Travelife, a certification scheme for sustainable tourism. We started in the lowest step of the scheme and got straight to work. With its online platform, Travelife offers a lot of support in terms of training and certification.
Travelife is a three-stage certification program for tour operators and travel agents: (1) Travelife Engaged; (2) Travelife Partner and (3) Travelife Certified. We are at stage 3 – Travelife Certified.
Sustainable tourism is a process, which you also continue to grow in as a company. In 2017, we achieved the second step of certification: Travelife partner. In this step, you do online reporting on all aspects of your business and make an action plan for the coming years.
In early 2018, we proudly achieved our first real sustainability certification faster than initially planned: Nepal Inside Out became Travelife Certified.
The Travelife Certified award is a recognition of our excellence towards social and environmental sustainability. We comply with more than 200 criteria related to sustainability management, office operations, working with suppliers and customer communication. Travelife as a certification body is formally recognized by the Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC), the highest global body for sustainability in tourism, supported by the United Nations.
At this step, after submitting your report, you get an external auditor from Travelife to visit you. This checks whether what you report is correct, what your further plans are and advises which aspects can be addressed further. We passed, but there was still some work to do!
The certificate expires every 2 years, so then the whole process starts again. In November 2022, we had another external audit at our office in Kathmandu. We are Travelife Certified again until the beginning of 2025.
We are incredibly proud to say that we are 1 of the few companies in Nepal that achieved this certification, making us a frontrunner in Nepal in the field of sustainable tourism. For us, it certainly doesn’t stop here! We still have many plans and ideas to become even more sustainable.
Meanwhile, we have also joined Tourism Declares Climate Emergency and The Glasgow Declaration, to do our bit in protecting our climate this way too.
Our sustainability policy
As a guideline for the further development of our company in the sustainable direction, we have drawn up a sustainability policy. Here are a few points in advance:
We integrate sustainability into the design of all our trips. In addition, we promote sustainability on our website(s) and on our social media. Moreover, we only work with Western partners who share the same values. Therefore, our partners also promote and implement sustainable tourism in their businesses.
We also actively encourage our local partners and suppliers to improve their services sustainably. Think of our hotel partners, providers of transport and/or excursions, etc.
First and foremost, we train our staff to run trips sustainably. Furthermore, we ensure that they involve our guests in this. We encourage them to participate in trainings on this topic. These trainings are organized by local NGO`s. Sustainability is an essential part of internal training. We therefore offer this to all our employees every two years.
We create awareness of sustainability issues among our customers. This is done during trip preparation as well as through a short briefing after arrival in Kathmandu. Through blogs and pages on our website, our clients can learn even more about this topic. Information about this can also be found on our partners’ websites.
In short, we have a policy which is focused on sustainable tourism. This is with the intention of striving to minimize all negative impacts on the natural and social environment in Nepal.
To smoothly implement this in our daily operations, we have elaborated this policy in a number of guidelines. Should you be interested in this, be sure to take a look!
Annual report sustainable entrepreneurship – 2021/2022
If you have any questions about our approach, or would like more explanation on a particular topic, please do not hesitate to contact us!
Maaike Mainali
maaikemainali@gmail.com
Sustainability Manager
Nepal Inside Out Treks & Tours
