WE ARE CLIMATE POSITIVE

The Safari Collection has gone climate positive. We’re proud to announce that our entire company has achieved its goal of becoming climate positive. What does this mean? Well, it means we counted as much of our carbon emissions as we could and purchased enough carbon credits to offset them through registered schemes. This is in conjunction with all the other sustainability measures we already take to reduce our emissions in the first place and to keep our environmental footprint as light as possible. This is just one step on our journey to reducing our impact on the planet and we understand we still have a long road ahead with many further improvements to make.

Humans worldwide are feeling the advanced impacts of climate change. The science is undeniable. Flooding, hurricanes, drought, forest fires, the list goes on. According to a UN REDD Programme report, deforestation and forest degradation accounts for over 20% of global greenhouse gas emissions, second only to transport. That’s why The Safari Collection have chosen to support two pioneering projects in Kenya which are empowering local communities to conserve forests.

In 2021, we offset our carbon emissions with the Mikoko Pamoja project, an innovative initiative on the Kenyan south coast which is regenerating mangrove and seagrass ecosystems and using the sale of carbon credits to fund community development. There are so many reasons why we love this pioneering community enterprise. Known as ‘blue ecosystems’, mangrove forests and seagrass meadows are fast disappearing, and with them, the thousands of species that begin their life cycles in them. Not only do they harbour a rich biodiversity of life, purify water, protect coastlines from storms and provide food and livelihoods to hundreds of millions of people, but they also trap and store up to ten times more carbon than regular forests on land. This holds mega potential for mitigating global warming. So far, Mikoko Pamoja has conserved 117 hectares of mangrove, capturing over 20,000 tons of carbon dioxide.

In 2020, we chose another ground-breaking initiative through which to purchase our carbon credits: Kasigau Corridor REDD+ Project from Wildlife Works. This project is protecting over 500,000 acres of threatened forest between Kenya’s Tsavo East and Tsavo West National Parks, a wildlife corridor and key habitat for thousands of species including endangered mammals such as lion, cheetah, Grevy’s zebra and wild dog. Through the sale of carbon credits, or VERs (Verified Emissions Reductions), one VER being equivalent to one ton of emissions, the project has brought jobs and income to over 100,000 people whilst avoiding 1.5 million tons of carbon emissions every year.

Money generated from Kasigau Corridor carbon credits has funded over 3,000 scholarships to students, built 15 new schools, provided safe drinking water to over 25,000 people and wildlife jobs to over 300. These are just some of the benefits, alongside the planting of over 50,000 trees and putting an end to the unsustainable destruction of forest for agriculture, as well as illegal poaching and logging.

Carbon credits are helping us to balance our unavoidable emissions and support some impactful community initiatives which are making a difference to Kenya’s people and forests. However, our longer-term goal is to continue reducing our carbon footprint altogether and live a sustainable existence.