We created Africome not only because we love Africa, but because we strongly want to be part of those who preserve and sustain the second largest continent in the World.
For this very same this reason, we strove, since the very beginning, to operate in the most virtuous and responsible way, paying great attention to sustainability issues, environmental conservation, and the impact of our itineraries and guests on the African land and communities.
Since its very foundation, Africome is dedicated to utmost care in selecting its partners in Africa, favouring eco-sustainable and socially-responsible camps and lodges.
Since 2022, Africome took a major step towards sustainability by offsetting all CO2 emissions produced by the tailor-made itineraries sold to public and becoming a “benefit corporation”. Sometime after, in 2024, Africome also partnered up with “1% For The Planet”.
Impact
Our commitment to sustainability
Benefit corporation
Benefit corporations carry out an economic activity while pursuing, profit aside, one or more purposes of mutual benefit which positively impact both on the society and on the environment. As a benefit corporation, we aimed at better defining and strengthening our commitment to sustainability, that today more than ever is an integral and substantial part of Africome, of its mission and strategy. Such commitment has been incorporated in the new Africome by-laws, which as benefit corporation is also obliged by law to publish an annual impact report defining purposes, mid-long term goals and actions to achieve them.
1% For The Planet
1% For The Planet is a global network with thousands of companies and environmental organizations united by the common goal of protecting and supporting the planet. Founded in 2002, the network includes nearly 5.000 companies and over 7.200 environmental partners from more than 110 countries. All the companies and environmental partners are certified by 1% For The Planet and so are all the donations made which to date amount to over USD 700 million. Africome has become a member of 1% For The Planet in 2024, committing itself to donate 1% of its revenues to support one or more of the organizations within the network.
Africome impact reports
In order to make our sustainability performance transparent, every year we draft and publish the impact report of the benefit corporation, which contains the evaluation of the impact generated while carrying out our business, as well as the description of the goals achieved during the year and of the new goals do be pursued in the future.
Impact report 2024
Our environmental partners
We actively promote and support environmental organizations within the 1% For The Planet network, but not only. Such organizations share our values and are committed to nature conservation and support of local communities in Africa. They operate in various fields such as health and education, social development, climate change, reforestation, endangered species and human-wildlife conflicts.
“In Africa you can’t wait for the patient to get to the hospital, because he will die. You have to get the hospital to the patient”, noticed Michael Wood, English surgeon and founder of Amref. For 50 years the Flying Doctors’ Clinical Program has been flying doctors to areas where there’s no medical aid, providing free care to disadvantaged populations. From the experience of the Flying Doctors Amref Health Africa was born. Nowadays Amref is the major no profit health care organization in the African continent, with the aim of helping health and social development in the most remote and marginalized areas.
Carbon Tanzania is an impact-driven social enterprise making the protection of forests and biodiversity valuable to Tanzania and its people. It generates value for Tanzania’s economy and its people by producing nature-based carbon credits that enable local people to earn revenues from the protection of their landscapes. Carbon Tanzania designs and implements projects that not only recognise the role of indigenous people and local communities in conservation, but integrally depend on their involvement. All of their forest community partners receive a minimum of 61% of the initial sales revenue.
The Great Plains Foundation is a charitable organization committed to conserving environment, wildlife and local communities of Africa, through the promotion of responsible tourism to help alleviate poverty and to support community development. To this end the foundation has formed Rhino Without Borders, a partnership between Great Plains Conservation and AndBeyond aiming at moving 100 rhinos from the highest poaching zones in South Africa to Botswana, one of the most secure areas in the whole of Africa. Conservation of lions, elephants and rhinos is crucial to the future of tourism in Africa and to the survival of local communities depending on it.
Kope Lion is a non-profit organization founded by Ingela Jansson in 2011 with the goal to enable a positive and lasting coexistence between pastoralists and lions in the Ngorongoro area, in Northern Tanzania. Here the human-lion conflict, driven largely by killings after livestock attacks, has contributed to a decline in lion populations and disrupted the vital connectivity between the Ngorongoro Crater’s isolated lion population and the wider Serengeti ecosystem. Kope Lion works to reduce this conflict, increase tolerance and safeguard and monitor lion populations, also with the support of a team of Ilchokuti, former lion hunters, who act as guardians to the livestock and lions.
Painted Dog Conservation (PDC) is a non-profit organization founded in 1992 by the biologist and conservationist Greg Rasmussen further to his research on painted dogs conducted in Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe. This endangered species, with fewer than 7.000 individuals left across Africa, has been decimated by diseases, poaching and habitat loss. The aim of PDC is to protect the painted dogs through conservation, education and outreach programs, which include a visitors center, a rehabilitation facility and anti-poaching units. PDC monitors several packs of painted dogs in Hwange, Mana Pools and in the Mid-Zambezi.