The Sawday’s Impact Report 2023-24

A word from Tessa, our Sustainability Manager

“We live in a short-sighted world, where we fail to look ahead to the consequences of our actions as a business. It’s time for that to change.”

As the world turns its attention to sustainability and ethics with more force than ever, many brands are investing heavily in painting pictures of their efforts or drastically altering their methods. We are forever grateful that our business was born 30 years ago with strong ethics, authentic values and a genuine ambition to improve the impact of travel. Socialism and environmentalism are in our blood. The very nature of our unique business model, where employee ownership joins with our charitable trust, allows both the people and the environment to have a voice at the most senior level.

2023 was about weaving this way of thinking into every team within the business and reviewing our practices to ensure we act always with integrity. We wanted to get away from the common failing of short sighted thinking, failing to plot and follow a long-term plan. We designed our 2027 strategy, envisioning what we wanted the future of travel to look like 4 years from now. We proudly launched a 3-year charity partnership with Campaign for National Parks and we forged ahead with our Net Zero 2030 reduction strategies. Importantly, we have come together to share ideas and resources within our industry. Alongside our Travel by B Corp group and other partnerships, we continue inspire change and use our business as a force for good wherever we can.

A hard, honest look at our emissions showed us our where our biggest opportunities and challenges lie, as well as allowing for some immediate gains and enabling us to set an ambitious goal that doesn’t dodge the difficult questions. 

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We launched a policy capping the number of places we work with in certain locations. We hope to inspire others to do the same and encourage guests to explore new destinations or travel out of season, to help spread the burden tourism puts on communities. 

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Alongside reactive work like fundraising to support Ukrainian refugees, we saw our charitable trust help fund young environmentalists through The Resilience Project and ran pro bono marketing days to help charities thrive. 

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A new commitment to improving access to nature for two groups – those with disabilities and disadvantaged young people – proved a steep learning curve that prompted deep reflection but lead to some very valuable work and clearer future plans. 

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With treeplanting under increasing scrutiny, we examined our conservation work and decided on a thorough review of our practices, while still maintaining support for some great local projects. 

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With employee ownership providing a powerful platform, we expanded benefits, implemented several new policies on maternity leave, carers and periods, and formed a team to ensure inclusivity across the company.

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As founding members of travel by B Corp, we came together with a bunch of other brilliant travel brands with the aim of making collective change within in the industry and to help UK consumers to travel better by choosing B Corp certified travel businesses.

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We recognise being a responsible traveller isn’t always easy, but we also know it can often improve your experience, so we’ll be finding ways to remove barriers to better travel.

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What’s next? 2027 Goals

We’re challenging ourselves to do more in every area. Alongside our ambitious Net Zero target, we’ll be doing new conservation work, picking up speed on our accessibility project, continuing to examine our internal practices while also funding and supporting a range of causes. It’s going to be a busy but brilliant year. 

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About us

 

Sawday’s was founded 29 years ago, from wine-stained notes on French walking tours. The principle of inspecting every place and forming personal connections started here and never left us. Becoming leaders in ethical and sustainable travel was a natural path for us to walk.  

Canopy & Stars came next, with an outdoorsy spin that brought treehouses, cabins and yurts to a huge audience. Every place is still inspected, in walking boots rather than comfortable shoes, and less than 20% of places that apply are accepted into the collection. 

Paws & Stay, the puppy of the family, was created in 2021 as the UK’s only dog-first travel website. It was made by animal lovers to take the frustration out of finding genuinely dog-friendly places to stay.