Since 2023, Swoop has been a certified B Corp. It’s our deeply held belief that we have a responsibility to consider the planet in everything we do. We’re proud to be part of a movement committed to creating positive change in the world. Choosing to travel with a B Corp for your next adventure has never been a more meaningful decision: wherever in the world you travel with one, you can be assured that your trip will be having a positive impact from contributing to local conservation projects, working with ethical businesses and taking tangible steps to address your carbon footprint.
But what exactly is a B Corp? And how does booking with one make a tangible difference to your trip and to Antarctica?
What is a B Corp?
A certified B Corporation, or B Corp, is a company that meets rigorous standards of social and environmental performance, accountability and transparency. Swoop becoming a B Corp was an ethical decision to put the destinations we travel to and the people we work with at the heart of everything we do.
This might sound like a nice piece of greenwash, but becoming a B Corp isn’t a tickbox exercise. Becoming accredited meant that every single aspect of how we operate as a company had to be assessed by B Lab, the nonprofit that provides accreditation. It’s not an easy process – the audit assesses everything from our environmental impact, to how we treat our team members, to our relationships with our suppliers and wider role in the community.
For Swoop, achieving our B Corp status (take a look at the B Corp website to see how we scored at the end of the process) meant taking concrete actions, from amending our the company constitution to ensure we consider social and environmental factors in our decision-making, improving our gender balance by hiring more senior female managers and creating a full-time sustainability manager position.
Towards a more responsible tourism model
Responsible tourism is a buzz word that’s grown pretty stale from overuse, but what does it look like when you unpack that phrase as a B Corp?
Swoop has signed the Glasgow Declaration on climate action in tourism, committing to developing a decarbonisation plan that will halve our emissions by 2030. The first step in this was performing a complete carbon audit on our business, including calculating the carbon footprint of our travellers and the Antarctic expedition cruise ships they sail on.
In the past year, we saw a 3% decrease in our emissions 26,560,000 kg of CO2. This includes all our travellers’ international and domestic flights, which account for 99% of all our emissions (you can see a full breakdown of the numbers, including our methodology, in our impact report). We already offset those emissions,but we are now looking at options beyond this to reduce and mitigate our direct emissions at an even faster rate.
Our CEO, Luke, is a member of the climate change committee for the International Association of Antarctic Tour Operators (IAATO) so we can better encourage change across the entire polar industry. We’re excited by some of the moves that our partners are introducing to reduce their carbon footprint. This season, the Magellan Explorer ship has been trialling e-Fuel (a truly carbon neutral fuel produced by Direct Air Capture) in its zodiac to see how their use can be scaled up. We’ve also started working with the Fridtjof Nansen, a hybrid expedition ship which has around 20% lower CO2 emissions compared to other similar vessels.
Supporting Antarctica
Part of the ethos of being a B Corp is that business isn’t just about profit, it’s about putting people and the planet at the forefront of the way we work. We created the Swoop Conservation Fund to do just that, donating 1% of our revenue to non-profit organisations that are working in Antarctica and Patagonia to create positive impacts on the ground. In its first year, the fund donated $75,000 USD. To leverage that impact even further, we’ve recently created an online platform for our travellers to make direct donations themselves.
In Antarctica, the first organisation we’ve been supporting is the Polar Citizen Science Collective (PCSC). Citizen science is a great example of giving something tangible back, by collecting data and samples in places that scientists can only occasionally visit due to high costs, but which expedition cruise ships call at throughout the season. Travelling on ships like Seaventure, Sylvia Earle and Greg Mortimer, all members of the Swoop team take part in PCSC-accredited citizen science projects so we can better encourage our travellers to get involved (our blog series follows every current Antarctic citizen project, from the field to the lab).
The Swoop Conservation Fund has also supported the work of the South Georgia Heritage Trust. South Georgia is a destination that’s very close to our hearts – not just for its incredible wildlife experiences, but as a symbol of how an ecosystem once devastated by humanity can make an extraordinary recovery when human pressure is removed from the picture. We’ve helped support their Commensalis project, a project about commemorating the damage done by the island’s whaling industry and supporting current whale conservation and education initiatives.
Perhaps most excitingly, in early 2025 Swoop has helped fund a pioneering eDNA survey in the Antarctic Peninsula. This uses new genetic fingerprinting techniques to look at the totality of what species are present in a given area, from the smallest plankton to the biggest whales, so is a great way of providing baseline data to researchers to monitor the health of the ecosystem. This eDNA is ery first of its kind to be done in the region The samples are currently being analysed in the lab and we’re looking forward to reporting back on the results as soon as we can.
A community of travel companies
One thing that Swoop’s B Corp status has underscored is that while we all have an important part to play, we’re only part of a much bigger picture. Much of the work in becoming a B Corp takes a holistic look at our entire supply chain. From minimising our ecological footprint to supporting our local partners and the communities where they live and work, every action we take is designed to leave a positive mark on the destinations we visit.
Some of our partners in the Antarctic cruise industry have already achieved their own B Corp status and others are working towards it or developing their open sustainability strategies. But since we’re only a small part of the much larger tourism industry, we’re also proud to be members of Travel by B Corp, a collective of independent UK-based travel companies that share a belief that our industry can be a force for good and want to be leading the way in sustainable practices – and do that in a way that’s transparent and accountable to the wider community.
We know we can’t rest on our laurels. A company’s B Corp status isn’t forever – we only get to keep it for three years, so we’re already prepping for our next audit and working hard to improve our recertification score. That score is evidence of the practical steps we’ve taken and continue to take to make Swoop a force for good in the travel industry – so that we can continue to share our passion for the ends of the Earth with our travellers far into the future.
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