Our Environmental responsibility
Offsetting the carbon footprint of our events is not easy to do. It takes time, a lot of energy & a large financial cost. How is the CO2 footprint calculated? How much carbon offset does a sapling provide? How much carbon offset does a young tree of say five years provide? How much hedging is needed? How many volunteers do we need to plant & what resources are needed?
We are profoundly conscious that 'carbon offsetting' is not the solution to the problem of global climate change. Indeed, we don't want to provide an excuse to produce more carbon by offering the easy route of 'offsetting'.
Here we give you the background information to our thinking & decision making. We invite our guests to interrogate the data & our methodology and, of course, make constructive suggestions!
Above data (trees planted & CO2 produced) is as of 30 April 2023.
Don't be FOOLED by the diagram above. 2021 was our FIRST YEAR measuring our CO2 footprint & our footprint grows as we move through the year. It will continue growing if we keep in mind that one tree takes 100 years to absorb 6 tons of CO2. That's a long time....and assuming the tree makes it to 100 years. Through our online CO2 meter, NOMAD Sea Kayaking is publicly declaring our commitment to take action & actively reduce our CO2 footprint as a business.
We have set ourselves the target to become a fully sustainable business. While we know this will be a long, complicated (and some would argue impossible mission), we will not fall for the tempting and supposedly easy route of just 'carbon offsetting'. Many companies claim to be doing great things for the environment because they ‘carbon offset’. Sadly a percentage of those businesses also believe that this is all they need to do. They don’t look at their business practices, their emissions, their supply chains, all of which remain the same & continue to detrimentally affect the world around us. NOMAD Sea Kayaking is committed to change every aspect of our organisation that needs to change to make good on our pledge.
We focus on the small actions we can take to make a difference. Many small actions make for big results over time.
Contact us to arrange a visit to our ’Haven for Nature’ land & view our saplings, hedges, wild flowers & bee hives. We‘d love to welcome you & show these off.
Over the past seventeen years of trading, we have tried to do good in our environment on our trips & courses. The focus is on beach cleans with guests filling black bags with refuse & processing it to landfill & using kayaks to reach inaccessible beaches & pollution points. Over the years we have managed to recycle more & more of this waste.
Now there is a national & global drive to make things right. To manage CO2 emissions & stop the poisoning of our fields, the destruction of topsoils, the cutting down of our ancient woods & the poisoning of our insects. All of these things are connected.
Most intelligent people realise that we all have to change our habits & this starts by recording our impact & then taking action to alleviate that impact.
Every NSK event has had a CO2 calculation built in to our website booking process allowing us to measure our impact & do something about that impact.
The calculation includes the following (in no particular order);
1. Driving two (2) work vehicles to our central work base i.e. marina & return at the end of the day.
2. Driving one (1) work vehicle to collect the allocated trailer with kayaks, paddles & buoyancy aids from our storage. Returning the trailer & boats at the end of the day.
3. Driving one (1) work vehicle with the allocated trailer to the designated launch venue for the event or course. Return journey at the end of each event.
4. Driving from Felixstowe to designated launch venue for one Guide. Return journey.
5. Plastic sit-on-top kayaks purchased abroad & imported to the UK by ship in a container.
6. Freshwater volume used to rinse all kayaks, guide boats & equipment including clothing, after each event & course.
5. Water is calculated on the number of baths (household) & we use the equivalent of five (5) baths to wash one full trailer load of twelve sit-on-top kayaks, two guide boats, one vehicle, one trailer & all paddles, buoyancy aids & guide clothing & equipment.
Variables
1. Mileage, distance from storage area to designated launch venue.
2. Number of kayaks carried.
3. Weight of the trailer towed.
4. Fuel is a variable but our towing vehicle never exceeds fifty miles per hour. This calculation has been factored in based on the mileage covered.
NOT Included in our Calculation
Guests' journey including the return journey, mileage, vehicle type & speed.
Our Calculations
The CO2 emissions are pre-calculated for each guest for every event & unique to that specific event. These calculations are already built into the website booking process.
(As of July 2021) The United Kingdom average for CO2 emissions is 12.7 tons per person, per year. Life expectancy in the UK is eighty-one years of age on average. Therefore, based on these numbers, a citizen of the United Kingdom will produce 1 029 tons of CO2 across his/her lifetime.
One tree offsets 6 tons of CO2 in its lifetime (from sapling to adult with the lifetime average of a tree at 100 years). Therefore, in theory, it takes 172 trees planted and surviving to maturity and beyond (for 100 years) to offset that lifetime (average) CO2 footprint.
It seems logical then that we need to do two things;
1. Lower our carbon footprint wherever we can.
NOMAD Sea Kayaking has taken active steps over its trading life i.e. dropping long-distance events like the 'Dorset Wild Camp' from its event portfolio, organising large annual beach clean events, running subsidised beach cleans as well as beach cleans on all trips, planning the purchase of an electric vehicle & paying attention to our suppliers & their supply chains (easier said than done).
2. Plant as many trees & hedges as we can. Rewild wherever possible. Plant native species rich, wildflower meadows, secure land for nature.
NOMAD Community Projects, at the time of writing (close of 2021), has planted five hundred & fifty trees, not including hedging. NCP has negotiated the lease on two and a half acres of land for planting & rewilding, all under our control & management & open to the public for scrutiny.
Trees Planted to Date - Species
Crab Apples, Rowan, Oak, Elder, Wild Cherry, Silver Birch, Hazel, Downy Birch, Goat Willow.
Hedging Planted to Date - Species
Hawthorn & Blackthorn
Our planting objective is to 'rewild' wherever possible & as much as we can, promoting insects & healthy soil which in turn will attract birds & small mammals. Planting saplings & hedging is the easiest way to offset CO2 & provides an immediate & tangible result. We accept that our calculations are nowhere near perfect & they probably never will be. But that's not the point. The point is to take action every day & offset our impact on our environment, going some way towards being fully carbon neutral (if that is even possible).
Our Objectives for 2022 & 2023
1. Replace a diesel vehicle with an electric vehicle capable off towing our large, heavy trailers to launch venues.
2. Replace all of our plastic kayaks with recycled kayaks, manufactured from plastic NSK & NCP has collected from UK beaches.
3. Inform guests of the enormity of the challenge we all face as well as the solutions by hosting educational events such as viewings of Attenborough's 'A Life on Our Planet.'
4. Lobby our local Suffolk Coastal MP (NCP sent a copy of Sir David Attenborough's 'A Life on Our Planet' to Therese Coffey (MP)) with a letter beseeching urgent action in key areas where a difference can be made quickly & visibly.
Actions Underway - 2023
We are in the process of purchasing a full set of recyclable litter pickers and rings (all recycled from plastic collected from our beaches & coastal waters). These will be used from on our first litter picking events in 2022 onwards.
We are also in talks with two UK companies about manufacturing a fleet of twenty four kayaks using only recycled plastic from plastic (fishing nets) collected by NOMAD Sea Kayaking & NOMAD Community Projects on our beach clean events.
NOMAD Sea Kayaking has taken this first steps to publicly measure, manage & minimise our carbon footprint & publish our data as an operation. Our guests can do the same by supporting our work by;
1. Donate when booking.
2. Volunteering to plant & work on the 'Haven for Nature' site.
3. Buy a sapling or hedging when booking.
We'd love to hear your views, ideas, questions & suggestions on any aspect of the way we make our calculations & anything we may have neglected to account for. We are also interested in any leads for potential collaborators who can help us achieve our sustainability goals for our precious planet.
Please contact us at apply@nomadcommunityprojects.co.uk or telephone 01473 - 375 026 during business hours.
NOMAD Sea Kayaking is proud to be a finalist in the 2021-2022 East Of England Tourism Awards in the Ethical, Responsible and Sustainable Business category.
We have worked consistently hard for well over a decade to support our environment in the east of England. It is a great honour to be recognised for our work.