With this sustainability policy, we want to highlight the responsible practices guiding our operations. As Iceland Tours is part of the Travel Connect house of travel brands, we follow their certifications and policies to show our dedication to these issues.

Iceland Tours is a member of Travelife, an internationally recognized training, management, and certification program for sustainability in tourism. We are very proud to announce that we've received their top recognition, Travelife Certified. This makes us, along with Travel Connect and some of our sister brands, the first in Iceland to have achieved this certification.

This accolade confirms that we’re working hard to demonstrate professionalism and integrity when it comes to environmental issues.

A series of Sustainable Development Goals were adopted as part of the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. These focus on the 3 pillars of sustainable development: economy, society, and the environment.

We want to play our part in reaching these goals. For that reason, our Sustainability Policy is based on the goals that are relevant to our operations.

For the environmental part of our Sustainability Policy, we focused on the following goals and actions:

Iceland Tours’ aim is to reduce waste in all our operations. We do this by following the 3 Rs of waste management: reduce, reuse, and recycle.

When it comes to our customers’ documents, they are all shared electronically. This saves a lot of printing and waste.

All the electricity and central heating at our office in Iceland comes from renewable energy sources.

In fact, most of the energy used in Iceland comes from renewable energy sources as follows: around 70% of electricity production is from hydropower plants and 30% from geothermal energy, while 90% of central heating from geothermal energy and around 10% from electricity.

As we love Iceland and sharing our homeland with guests, we know that our natural environment is our most valuable resource. That means it’s in our best interest, and those of our clients, to operate sustainably.

This way we can protect the environment and the ecosystems of Iceland to maintain biodiversity, both on land and below water.

To do this we only work with operators who share our ideals, so we can collectively limit our environmental impact and the environmental impact of our clients.

We also encourage and guide our visitors to treat the environment with care and respect. Our travel documents, like pre-arrival emails, include relevant information on responsible travel, which can be found on our Travel Sustainably blog.

When travelling on self-drive tours, we also offer hybrid vehicles. This way customers can go on a road trip while contributing to our sustainable efforts.

This way our clients know how they can conserve the natural environment and wildlife, support local businesses, and have a positive impact on the local people.

As well as our environmental impact, we also take our social responsibility very seriously, whether that be within the company or around Iceland.

Iceland Tours aims to support its employees to enjoy a good work-life balance. Some successful examples include offering flexible working hours and gradually shortening the working days to 7 hours.

We treat all stakeholders with respect, whether they are partners, customers or local residents. This is another reason why we like to ensure that our suppliers operate in a socially responsible way.

We are also dedicated to employee training and development. For this, we offer a series of seminars and training throughout the year. It can include talks such as: destination training, energy management and stress management, positive attitude and emotions, breathing techniques, and reading weather and northern lights forecasts.

We follow Travel Connect’s Equal Pay Policy, which is based on laws and regulations and equal rights for all. Our goal is to ensure we offer an inclusive working environment where employees are appreciated as individuals, regardless of their gender (and other protected characteristics).

Tourism is fundamental to Iceland’s economy and can impact its social and natural environments. For that reason, we want to ensure a sustainable approach in all our operations.

We aim to buy from local suppliers and recommend local businesses, such as accommodation and restaurants. By doing this the revenue generated by visitors stays in the local communities.

You can read our full Sustainability Policy on the Travel Connect website. There you’ll also find a summary of our future goals as we continue to work on becoming more sustainable.

For questions or comments about our Sustainability Policy, please contact Travel Connect’s sustainability coordinator, Kristín Halldórsdóttir, at kristin@travelconnect.com.