Mountains have their own delicate ecosystems, habitats and landscapes. Mountains are by definition; raised landforms, every metre of ascent brings you to new vegetation, habitats and climates. They define borders, influence the weather and provide refuge.

These are some of the reasons we visit mountain areas. We guide every hike with safety, conservation and preservation as our top priorities and to cause as little disturbance as possible to these delicate areas. We put careful thought into our own impact on the areas we visit on our hikes and consider everything from footfall, transport, litter, the eco-systems as a whole and local communities in the areas we visit.

Simply put; we guide hikes in Ireland and the UK. Our aim is to share our experience and what we know about the landscape with everyone who decides to hike with us. Offering bespoke experiences, uniquely adapted to every individual and group that joins us knowing these can be as diverse as the landscapes themselves.

 We aspire to:

• Leave No Trace

• Avoid peak times and areas where this is viable and whenever possible

• Impart our own knowledge of the mountain ecosystems and delicate balance within and share our passion for these places. Improving knowledge, connection and awareness creates a greater hope of preserving and improving these areas for future generations.

• Commit to align ourselves with the UN Sustainable Development Goals and changing models for promotion and sustainability of our mountain landscape

To ensure our tourism business is viable in the long term, we at Two Rock Outdoor will endeavour to protect and enhance the environment on which our livelihood depends, ensuring an outstanding experience for our clients.

 
We aspire to:

• Ensure a fair economic advantage to all communities we visit. 

• Minimise as much as possible our economic, social and environmental impacts.

• Commit to align ourselves with the UN Sustainable Development Goals and changing models for a more sustainable tourism sector

• We will keep sustainable tourism at the heart of everything we do, as the industry grows we too may grow and with this we will adopt the UNWTO guidance of "Tourism that takes full account of its current and future economic, social and environmental impacts, addressing the needs of visitors, the industry, the environment and host communities"

This aspect of our business will be one of our great challenges. We acknowledge that the a large portion of visitors to the island arrive by plane and that tourism contributes globally to around 8% of the total greenhouse gas emissions and according to UNWTO’s 2019 report Transport-related emissions from tourism are expected to account for 5.3% of all man-made CO2 emissions by 2030. 

We will monitor our own travel with the aim to reduce our usage of Diesel journeys. Where this is not feasible we aim to reduce the number of vehicles required for our activities by providing affordable minibus transport and encouraging carpooling where possible. 

We have learned much from the experience of other companies and continue to do so. Here is what we have implemented to date:

• Most of our vehicle washes are waterless, it is estimated it takes 135 litres of water to wash a car so the majority of our washes are done using No-H2O product (link below).
• We have added a carbon calculation widget to our website to facilitate carbon calculations
• Our bus is mentained to a high standard and regularly serviced to ensure a lower emissions
• Eco driving is encourage, training recieved on this through CPC course every 5 year