1% for the Planet

Since 2021, Outdoor Medicine has been a member of the 1% for the Planet consortium. 1% for the Planet is an international organization whose members donate at least 1% of their annual revenue to non-profit environmental organizations. We donate 1% of our revenue to one of the affiliated causes because we believe that caring for nature is also our responsibility and is necessary to ensure that we can continue to enjoy it in the future and perform our work effectively.

“It’s a cost of doing business on this planet, it’s not philanthropy – it’s an absolute necessity for us living on this planet. It’s the opposite of doing nothing.” – Yvon Chouinard, founder of Patagonia and co-founder of 1% for the Planet.

Carbon footprint

We strive to keep our carbon footprint as small as possible by offering vegetarian meals at our activities wherever feasible, encouraging the use of public transport and carpooling, and utilizing digital learning tools such as eBooks and e-learning materials as much as possible. Recently, we started calculating the carbon footprint of all our activities and compensating for it. We use the calculator from Greentripper for this purpose, and compensation is done through Trees for All.

Sustainability and long-distance travel

We are aware of the CO2 emissions we cause by organizing courses in distant locations. Therefore, we choose to organize most of our activities in the Netherlands. Additionally, we have found suitable locations in Europe for our mountain medicine and marine medicine courses, allowing us to travel there together by carpooling or public transport without the need for flights.

We believe that in some cases, it is still desirable to have hands-on experience with self-reliance, harsh conditions, and environmental factors such as extreme altitude, which are crucial in expedition medicine. To set a clear limit, we organize on average a maximum of one course at a distant location per year for a limited number of participants.

“Be remote to learn remote”

For long-distance air travel, we also compensate for the CO2 emissions of the flights for all participants and instructors through Trees for All.