Environmental policy

Elding Adventure at Sea is a family-owned company and the leading whale watching operator in Reykjavik, Iceland. Ever since we started our business we have been looking for a way to minimize the environmental impact and pollution caused by our activities.

Now we are members of EarthCheck environmental management system and we received the Environmental Award of the Icelandic Tourist Board in 2008. Elding is committed to providing high-quality tours in a way that minimises the environmental impact and pollution caused by its activities while allowing visitors to enjoy the ocean without disturbing its inhabitants.

Special emphasis is put on striving to find less-polluting energy sources to run our operations and minimizing the production of waste and improving recycling. In our sustainability policy, special emphasis is put on:

• Aiming to trade only with companies marked with the Nordic Eco label in Printed Matter, regarding the printing of our brochures and tickets. With this we hope to minimize the impact on nature in this field.
• Complying with all relevant environmental, public, and occupational health and safety, hygiene and employment legislation and regulations, as well as the IceWhale guidelines for responsible whale watching.
• Consideration being given to employing and empowering local staff, but also supporting international co-operation with researchers and providing work opportunities for foreign trainees.
• Giving preference to environmentally safe products and services of local origin that do not adversely affect the organization’s operational activities, viability and environmental and social impacts.
• Providing regular environmental and safety training to our staff and encouraging them to present our policy to our guests, suppliers and customers. We aspire to educate our visitors about the sea and the guidelines for responsible whale watching.

We believe that making optimal use of environmental resources is a key element in tourism development to maintain essential ecological processes and help to conserve natural heritage and biodiversity. Elding’s goal is to operate on sustainability principles, which refer to the environmental, economic, and socio-cultural aspects of tourism development. A suitable balance must be established between these three dimensions to guarantee its long-term sustainability.

We will continuously seek to improve environmental and socio-cultural performance and the policy will be annually reviewed in accordance with the requirements of EarthCheck Company Standard.

Rannveig Grétarsdóttir
General Manager