Sustainability
Environmental Sustainability at Tour Salt Spring
In all things we do, our goal is to have a minimal negative impact on the environment.
To demonstrate our commitment, we undergo a stringent certification process with Sustainable Tourism 2030. We are proud to have achieved their GOLD rating again!
One of the goals with our tours is to reduce the number of vehicles operating on Salt Spring Island. We pick up and drop off at ferry terminals, accommodations, and other locations so you don’t need to bring your car.
Please see our Visiting Salt Spring Island Without a Car page.
Our smallest tour van is a plug-in hybrid that prioritizes battery power. It has enough range for most of our tours (sometimes when we are picking up guests from various locations, we exceed the battery range). It has been working extremely well – after two seasons of use, we have had to add fuel only 2 times (partly just to keep the fuel ‘fresh’).
The main fuel source is the sunshine that our solar arrays receive – we are so excited to offer sunshine-powered tours!
We Offer Carbon Neutral Tours!
These are two of our large tour vans, showing off their carbon neutral credentials – they run on 100% waste vegetable oil. Running on a plant-sourced fuel makes the van carbon-neutral is the sense that their fuel is not from fossil fuels, but from plants, so the associated carbon comes from the natural carbon cycle. But it’s even better than that. The oil we use is waste oil that we get from local restaurants. It’s their waste product (from french fries, and other cooking) that they need to dispose of. So we save in a bunch of ways: we don’t burn fossil fuels; fossil fuels don’t need to be burned to transport fuel to the island for us; the restaurants don’t have to burn fossil fuel to truck their used oil away; and the vegetable oil gets used once more after being used for its intended purpose (no agricultural land was taken out of food production to specifically produce fuel). We filter the oil, and put it in our tank. No toxic processes involved (we don’t make ‘biodiesel’). We had to invest a chunk of money into converting the van, but the payoff is worth it. We have partnered with local restaurants which provide us with their oil – it works for everyone.
Our partners are:
-Rock Salt Restaurant -Al’s Gourmet Falafel and Fries -Putin Plus Poutine -Woodley’s Restaurant (Harbour House Hotel)
Other Sustainable Business Operations
Besides avoiding use of fossil fuels, we reduce our footprint throughout our operations in many other ways, including:
- Water use is minimized; rainwater is harvested and used for washing vehicles, and we practice stringent water conservation.
- We use solar panels to harvest sunshine at our home/office which provides us with our electricity needs.
- We utilize non-toxic products where possible, such as a homemade windshield washer fluid, and propylene glycol based antifreeze.
- On our tours, we stop at establishments that source local materials and ingredients.
- We pick up roadside litter and remove invasive plant species from our local roads.
- We provide reduced rates and donations to local community groups and charities.
- We donate 1% of our sales to the Salt Spring Island Conservancy.
Our efforts to reduce our impact are ongoing. We look forward to the day when we will be able to find suitable electric-powered vehicles to run all of our tours.
Our business has been recognized by Sustainable Tourism – we have been awarded their GOLD certification level!
