Our Ethos

Sidetracked is a mission-led outdoor adventure company organising guided tours all over Europe. Focusing on true wilderness experiences off the beaten track. Taking you to beautiful places, in small groups and getting to experience something truly unique. Allowing you to discover new places, push yourself and make new adventure buddies. We are making it our mission to make sure that we give more back than we ever take away. From the tiny decisions to the big stuff. We are conscious that we want to protect these amazing wild places that we’re lucky enough to explore.

Giving more back than we ever take away.  

We value the beautiful parts of the world that we operate in and we want to make sure these places stay beautiful. Our sustainability commitments are:

1. WE DONATE 1% TO EFFECTIVE CLIMATE CHARITIES

Unfortunately, many aspects of the travel industry are currently impossible to decarbonise, in particular the international flights our guests take to get to our trips. As we cannot eliminate all sources of carbon emissions for our tours, we donate 1% of all trip costs to mitigate climate change.

Unfortunately 90% of offsetting projects have been shown to be ineffective and even 40% of UN carbon credits have been shown to be unviable. In order to ensure that our 1% donations resulted in the biggest positive impact possible, we sought advice from researchers at Giving Green. 

Giving Green is a nonprofit research team of climate scientists, economists and impact evaluation experts. They spend thousands of hours each year assessing climate impact strategies and evaluating which organisations are the most cost-effective in terms of their impact.

Clean Air Task Force has been ranked as one of Giving Green’s top charities since 2020. We have therefore chosen the Clean Air Task Force as our charity for climate donations for 2024/2025.

It’s estimated that for every dollar donated to the Clean Air Task Force, 1 ton of carbon emissions are avoided. This is 25 times more cost effective than the majority of gold standard offsets offered by the UN.

Read more about Clean Air Task Force and make a donation

2. EMPOWER OUR GUESTS TO TRAVEL SUSTAINABLY

We strive to make every effort possible to ensure that from the moment you arrive on our trips, your adventure is as sustainable as possible. 

  • Ensure our merch and guide apparel is sourced from sustainable companies.

  • Source local products as much as possible.

  • Provide detailed information on how to reach our trips by public transport or as few flights as possible.

  • Offer guests the ability to match our climate donations.

3. EMPOWER OUR GUIDES TO BE NATURE’S GUARDIANS 

We want to ensure that our guides are empowered to lead trips in the most sustainable way possible:

  • Provide a day's guide training each year on climate change, sustainability and ecology.

  • Survey our guides each year to get their feedback on how we can make our tours more sustainable.

  • Provide educational materials for our guides to use on trips to educate our guests about climate change and what we can do to mitigate it.

4. SMALL GROUP SIZES

Our small group tours are inherently less impacting than other tour offerings. We are better able to monitor our environmental impact and to contribute to the local economy in a more direct and meaningful way.

5. FOLLOW LEAVE NO TRACE GUIDELINES

Sidetracked is a member of Leave No Trace and all guides are certified in the Leave No Trace principles. 

6. REPORT ON OUR PROGRESS

Each year we will produce a report on our progress towards creating more sustainable tours which we will share with our guests. We strive to improve year on year, and this reporting will hold us accountable to that.

-Sophie and the Sidetracked team