Making a difference, one traveller at a time, but how?
Elisabeth and Nicolas, a young French couple, were travelling in Malaysia when they came up with the idea for My Green Trip. What is My Green Trip you may ask? A way to connect environmentally-concerned travelers with locale, nature-friendly tourism organizations aimed at cleaning beautiful places plagued by our rubbish. These tourist organizations are our partners that make the whole system work.
The non-profit association, based in the French part of Switzerland, just keeps growing. By the end of 2016 alone, they went from a team of two to a team of 13 passionate volunteers. No small feat! At this time, they developed a trial branded cleaning kit (aimed at facilitating the disposal of collected rubbish) consisting of bin bags, gloves, flyers and stickers. These kits are distributed amongst travelers via their partner organizations. Currently setting up pilot projects with partners all around the world, the first one just took place in Cuba: a place threatened by increasing tourist traffic, Croatia, Spain and Portugal. Always looking to expand, My Green Trip actively searches for possible partner tourism organizations to implement projects globally. The goal is to have at least 1000 active partners throughout the world by 2020.
The Swiss project, made with CPV (centre protestant de vacances), will see 1,200 children, 300 adults, cleaning up vacation camps during the summer. Through this partnership My Green Trip seeks to educate and create awareness amongst the eyes of tomorrow regarding the need to clean up and save our planet.
While the primary impact is preservation of the environment, travelers are able to inspire others, all around the world, to follow suit. It is kind of an “education of others through leading by example”. The initiative allows others to follow suit via word of mouth, encourages travelers the world over to do their part in preserving our world, making our planet healthier, and ultimately reducing the amount of littering that occurs. Not only that, but My Green Trip can bring the benefits of a stronger, greener brand image to the businesses involved.
Today: build their community
Tomorrow: develop partnerships
After Tomorrow: develop an app and web tools
Website: http://mygreentrip.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mygreentrip/
Instagram: @mygreentrip
This story was previously published on GoodPowWow.