Sustainability

BDPNEXT Sustainability Policy – Purpose and Overview

This document states the meaning of sustainability for BDPNEXT and the actions that BDPNEXT is taking for sustainable business. The Sustainability Policy is written for the personnel, sub-contractors, clients, and business partners of BDPNEXT.

In Sweden, where we at BDPNEXT operate, the issues such as child labor and wildlife rights are included in the legislation and thus already into our procedures. That is why we aim to have an impact on other issues such as protecting the environment by correct waste disposal and giving back to the community by choosing local suppliers. We have high standards for employee welfare and we all times seek to have a safe and inspiring workplace for our employees.

We promote environmentally friendly activities and offer a myriad of excursion programs that minimize the impact on our precious environment, including walking and food tours, canoeing, kayaking and culture walks. Furthermore, we ensure all trash and waste is disposed of responsibly and we remain on the designated tracks during our nature walks to preserve the environment and not to disturb the local wildlife. That is why our policy is that we do not provide any activities with negative impact to the nature, animals nor environment.

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We are proud to be associated with our tourism affiliates and cruise partners that also make an effort towards CSR and sustainable tourism, such as reducing CO2 emissions, reducing water waste and eliminating plastics.

Mission statement

Taking steps to minimize our impact on the environment, providing a safe and enjoyable workplace, and promoting the health and well-being of our team members, customers and the general public is very important to us. We are always looking for ways to improve our services and widen our social and environmental responsibilities and that is why we have set the following goals for us:

1. Constantly develop the selection of our Sustainable Tours.

Internal Sustainability

Our whole employees are aware of our Sustainability Policy and are committed to improving and implementing the policy. Everybody is also involved in the recycling of our waste and trash at the office. To our internal sustainability is included the waste and energy management in our office and health and safety of our employees.

 Water is not running unnecessarily and dish washing machine is being run only when it is full. In addition, our coffee machine turns off automatically when the coffee is done.

Waste & energy management

• We use double-sided and black-and-white printing as a default; we also encourage our employees to think twice before printing.
• We use EU ECO label and recycled paper.
• We reuse the wasted printing paper and boxes and cardboard wherever we can.
• We sort our waste (glass, paper, cardboard, metal, plastic) and recycle old toners, electric appliances, bottles, and batteries.
• We switch off the computers and lights whenever we are not at the office.
• We have the lights on at our office only when necessary (e.g. meeting room light is on only when a meeting is taking place).
• We use environmentally friendly cleaners.
• We purchase in large quantities whenever possible.
• We do not use disposable tableware at the office, only the ones made of glass and porcelain.

Employee health and safety

• We have the occupational health system for our permanent employees.
• We are making sure that the working environment at the office and at the field is safe for our employees.
• We value the suggestions and concerns from our employees and are continuously trying to keep the working atmosphere encouraging.
• We make written contracts with our employees that state the salary and working conditions of the employee as per the Swedish Law.
• We follow the Swedish Law regarding young person’s employment.
• We compensate our employees’ overtime-working by giving them an extra week off and grant the annual paid holidays and sick leaves as per the Swedish Law.
• We do not discriminate our employees based on gender, age, nationality, race, disability, religion/beliefs or sexual orientation at recruitment, conditions of employment and access to training and senior positions.
• We no dot hinder trade union memberships.

External Sustainability

Our external sustainability includes our suppliers from transportation companies, hotels, restaurants and cafés to museums and venues. The Swedish Law defines the working conditions for the employees of our suppliers and this law includes for example a clause of young people’s employment.

Transportation

We at BDPNEXT see transportation as one of the biggest influencers to the environment and we are always looking for ways to reduce the emissions caused by transportation. To make this happen, we need to involve our transportation suppliers as well. Our biggest bus supplier works daily to work and meet the requirements of ISO 9001 and the requirements of ISO 14001.

• We encourage the bus companies to use newer buses, which have better emission filtering systems.
• We use smaller buses for smaller groups.
• We are always creating new tour ideas that involve minimal transportation (e.g. bike tours, walking and kayaking tours that use the shuttle from the cruise pier to the city center) and are encouraging our clients to choose the public transportation option whenever possible.

Sustainable tours by BDPNEXT

We are proud of our continuously growing selection of sustainable tours, which we are making to fit to the regional needs. In

Our sustainable tour uses minimal amount of fossil fuel transportation. Tours that do not use or use minimal of fossil fuel transportation are for example bike tours (no emissions), kayaking tours (only short transfer with a vehicle) and walking tours that use the shuttle bus for the pier-city-pier -transportations (only short transfer with a vehicle).

Whenever we can, we take advantage of the good public transportation system in Stockholm and give our clients the option to use for example public transportation for the transfers in the city center. We also recommend for our guests to use the trams and buses when they are exploring the city on their own.

If you have suggestions on how we can contribute to society, please share your idea on info@bdpnext.com!