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Our
Environmental Awareness
As a tour operator encouraging people
to travel to and in the world"s mountains, we have
to take responsibility for these actions. We audit our
environmental impact carefully, and have policies in place
to ensure we are a low impact operator. We are the first
to accept that this must involve a series of actions,
rather than sweeping statements, but at every level of
our operations we are working to reduce our environmental
impact. |
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Leave
No Trace partner
Icicle is an official partner
of the Leave No Trace campaign. What attracted us
to become a LNT partner, was that part of the focus
was to lead by example, and also a key element is
the education of clients on how to travel with minimum
impact in the mountains. It wasn't just a case of
signing up to a campaign, but a shift of our culture
to involve clients and to involve ourselves in a
project where actions speak so much louder than
words. |
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UIAA
Environment Label
Icicle has a UIAA Environment
Label, which
exists to promote high standards of conduct and
responsible access for climbing and mountain activities.
The
UIAA is a partner in the UN International Partnership
for Sustainable Development in Mountain Regions.
For all
activities covered by the Environment Label, we
provide all clients with a pre-activity briefing
on access issues and procedures that minimise the
impact of the activity on the environment. |
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Zero
Carbon Footprint Campaign
Icicle is a founder member
of this campaign, whose aim is to promote activities
which have the highest of environmental standards.
By following these standards on some specific
courses, such as some trekking and snowshoe courses,
you can opt to only use public rather than private
transportation.
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Carbon
Offsetting Campaign
Icicle encourages all clients
to consider offsetting their carbon emissions of
travel to the Alps through a campaign such as Climate
Care. Click on their logo on the right for more
details. For example, the cost of offsetting a return
flight from London Heathrow to Geneva is only £1.41. |
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| Environmental
policies and ethos |
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As
with all of our operations, our environmental policy
is not static but in a state of constant flux to
ensure
that we set the best standards, educate others about
them, then try to improve again. |
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We have
an active Responsible Business (RB) programme in
place for all operations, covering areas such as
local community involvement, environmental improvements,
employee well-being, and health and safety. |
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For
us Responsible Business is local
business. We actively employ mountain guides and
leaders who live locally, and encourage clients
to patronise locally operated restaurants, shops
and bars. |
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With
every environmental policy, it takes the two sides
to work together to produce any tangible results.
One thing that should be mentioned more by others
is that keeping these environmental standards is
not a pain or a drag, but a rewarding and educational
process that both a company and its clients can
share. |
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When
you book on a trip, do not forget that most of the
logistics and planning work is done in our UK office.
Our environmental policies are just as important
here, and we operate from a mainly paperless office. |
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All
bookings are made online, so a paper copy never
exists. We try to provide an enormous proportion
of the information that anyone booking needs, on
our website rather than in printed form. Paperless
e-bookings and constantly developing the website
rather than printed media are key to our policies. |
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Icicle
top tip for our mountain environment...
"Don't carry pre-bottled water to drink
when out in the mountains in the Alps. We
suggest you use fresh water from the tap,
and re-use plastic bottles for this" |
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| Environmental
policy in the
Alps |
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Every
client on our Alpine courses has an introduction
briefing when they arrive, and a significant element
of this focuses on the things
that each client can do to help the environment.
As with most things, simplicity is the best option,
and most of our actions are extremely low tech,
but the cumulative effect is big. |
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We
recycle all paper and glass that we use, and ask
all clients to sort their rubbish to assist this,
by providing recycling containers in all client
accommodation. Our accommodation is equipped with
energy saving devices (e.g. bulbs and energy A rated
appliances) wherever possible. During renovations
of our accommodation and offices, we recycle all
waste in local recycling centres, where roughly
90% of all material is recycled. |
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Clients
are asked to conserve electricity when they leave
their accommodation, by turning off all lights,
and to close windows and doors to conserve heat.
It is not exactly rocket science, but it all helps.
All of the clients accommodation have environmental
posters advertising our policies and how they can
help. |
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When
in the mountains all clients are briefed on litter
disposal, and all rubbish is carried off to be disposed
of in the valley. Many huts
are now installing bio-toilets to reduce the impact
on the environment, and we ask all our groups to
take all litter with them to reduce the amount of
rubbish that the helicopters
delivering supplies to the huts have to carry down,
or the rubbish that some guardians choose to burn
near the hut. |
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In
terms of transport pollution, wherever possible
we use larger group transport (local navette buses,
minibuses etc) rather than several individual cars,
and all our vehicles run on unleaded and are fitted
with catalytic convertors. All these policies combined
are a step in the right direction, but if you have
any ideas about how we could improve our policies
in the Alps, please let us know... |
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Icicle
top tip for our mountain environment...
"We educate all
our clients to carry out all rubbish they
generate when in the mountains, and to pick
up any litter that they find, to leave no
trace at all" |
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| Environmental
policy
on global expeditions |
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As
with our policies in the Alps, we pay attention
to every environmental detail on our expeditions.
Wherever possible we use other UIAA Environmental
Label or Leave No Trace holders to provide local
logistics services such as base camp services and
porter provisions. |
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Our
expeditions are planned in great detail to ensure
that we are sensitive to the local economy, and
we ensure that all local staff that are hired (drivers,
cooks, porters) are suitably trained, clothed, paid
and looked after. |
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On
expeditions we need to be a lot more aware of litter
disposal and sanitation, and we keep the same standards
as in the Alps. Often this necessitates getting
extra porters / mules / yaks to carry out litter
at the end of an expedition so that we ensure that
we leave the mountain in the same state as we found
it. |
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Expedition
dossiers are sent to all clients, that clearly state
the environmental policies we have for each of our
trips, and the particular requirements of the trip
they are booked on. These dossiers and the environmental
requirements are meticulously researched, with advice
from agents from the country to be visited. |
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Icicle
top tip for our mountain environment...
"When selecting
a course, you will see that we rate some for
having a low environmental impact itinerary,
such as snowshoeing, ski touring and trekking" |
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Environmental
campaign focus - Mont
Blanc Road Tunnel
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tunnel runs under Mont Blanc and links Chamonix in France
& Courmayeur in Italy. This 12km toll road starts
at 1300m above sea level, 300m above the valley floor.
It was reopened after a fatal fire started by a burning
lorry in 1999. The road tunnel is important to the local
ecomony for tourist traffic, but is also used for lorries
for road haulage. We protest strongly against the use
of the tunnel by lorries due to the amount of pollution
that they cause in the valley. There
are more environmentally suitable alternatives, such as
the Frejus tunnel, or rail freight. We support the regular
peaceful protests against the lorries, as shown by these
photos below. |
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would be easy to argue that we are focusing on the micro
scale here, rather than considering the macro or global
scale. Put this in context, as we are a relatively small
company doing our bit. Mont Blanc is a globally recognised
peak, and it is in our back yard. Surely our efforts to
preserve the environment here have
global impact, and may encourage other regions to consider
their mountain environment with greater respect and sensitivity.
We live in an age where many people prefer to use their
energies for cynicism and to put others efforts down.
Perhaps these energies might be better focused on
helping
everyone. |
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Icicle
top tip for our mountain environment...
"Always use IFMGA
Mountain Guides and UIMLA Leaders to guide
you in the Alps, as they are well trained
to teach you about the local environment" |
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| Climate
change
and the
future |
| Ozone
holes grow, sea levels rise, sections of the Antarctic
ice shelves break off, greenhouse gases build up, and
glaciers retreat. It is not a rosy future at the moment,
and the key question is how much of the this is attributable
to humans?
Yes, there are natural cycles of warmer and cooler periods
(you will have seen images of the Frost Fairs in London
on the Thames in the 18thC, and may have read that global
temperatures were far higher than present in Roman times),
but most scientists only agree that humans are accelerating
the rate of natural temperature increase, but they are
not sure how
much. With the main governments seemingly powerless (for
political reasons) to endorse significant measures to
decrease the human
impact on climate change, the power and responsibility
must now lie with companies who have
the ability to implement change. This page has given you
an idea of how
we are trying to help, but is it working and what are
the effects in the Alps? The
press has recently given a lot of focus recently to how
Alpine glaciers are retreating and some routes have become
unsafe. For the most part these stories are factually
correct, but the implication of most of them is that this
is a sudden occurance and realisation. This could not
be further from the truth. Routes come in and go out of
condition over the decades, and for the number of routes
that are taken out of condition by climate change, many
new ones become available. The doomsday secnarios are
global, not just restricted to the mountains. Our hope
is that the responsible use and enjoyment of mountains
can
become an impetus and symbol for future actions for our
whole planet. We invite you to participate in our efforts,
and if you have any ideas of how we could assist the environment
further, please e-mail them to us. |
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