About the Foundation
A permanent home for measurable tourism impact.
The Eco Travel Foundation NPC is a South African non-profit company created to help tourism better understand and address its climate impact while strengthening the ecosystems and communities on which the industry depends.
The Foundation leads the Climate Performance Programme and supports the wider learning, capacity building and collaborative action growing from this work.
Our purpose
Tourism should leave destinations stronger.
African tourism creates livelihoods, supports conservation economies and gives natural and cultural places tangible value. It also depends on energy, transport, food, water, infrastructure and complex supply chains that create environmental impacts.
The Foundation exists to help the industry engage honestly with both sides of that story.
Its role is to turn measurement into understanding, understanding into practical action and shared evidence into knowledge that can benefit more than one property or organisation.
We believe tourism’s positive contribution should be strengthened—not used to hide the impacts that still need to be measured and addressed.
Our vision
An African tourism sector that measurably reduces its climate impact while strengthening the wild ecosystems and communities that make the continent worth travelling through.
Our mission
To equip tourism properties, operators and travellers with credible climate information, practical learning and transparent ways to support positive action in the destinations they touch.
What the Foundation does
Connecting evidence, learning and action.
Climate Performance
Lead the programme and public platform for property-level carbon assessment, data quality, contextual benchmarking and annual progress tracking.
Knowledge and capacity
Help tourism teams strengthen climate literacy, improve operational data and develop the ability to understand and manage their own impact over time.
Industry learning
Use anonymised and responsibly interpreted patterns from the growing evidence base to support better conversations, tools and decisions across African tourism.
Conservation and community action
Develop transparent ways to support credible community, wildlife and conservation initiatives connected to tourism destinations.
The Foundation’s future conservation and community funding mechanisms are still being developed. Specific funding commitments, eligibility rules or contribution models will only be published once formally adopted.
Our founding programme
A practical starting point: carbon performance.
The Climate Performance Programme builds on a kimkim-funded climate action pilot, previously known as Verified Impact.
The pilot helped tourism properties establish operational carbon baselines, review supporting evidence, develop contextual comparisons and build the capability to use the findings.
ETF leads the next phase, with technical assessment and benchmarking delivered by ETC Africa.
Eco Travel Foundation
- Programme governance
- Public platform
- Participation framework
- Knowledge sharing
- Future programme development
ETC Africa
- Technical methodology
- Greenhouse-gas assessment
- Evidence review
- Calculation consistency
- Benchmark management
Participating properties
- Operational information
- Supporting evidence
- Internal capacity
- Reduction activity
- Ongoing reporting
ETF leads the programme; ETC Africa delivers technical assessment and benchmarking; participating properties provide records and act on the findings. These responsibilities are distinct, but current assessment is not independent third-party assurance. The proposed certification pathway would add a separate independent audit and formal decision.
How we intend to work
Principles before promises.
Evidence, not vague claims
Public communication should be supported by information that can be explained, traced and reviewed.
Transparency
We should communicate limitations, uncertainty and areas requiring improvement—not only the strongest results.
Local ownership
Properties, communities and conservation partners understand their own operating environments. The Foundation should support local leadership rather than impose remote solutions.
Capacity over dependency
Tools and learning should help tourism teams improve their own knowledge and reporting ability over time.
Coexistence
Healthy ecosystems, viable tourism businesses and resilient communities are interconnected rather than competing objectives.
Where we are now
Established with a long-term purpose. Still developing how best to deliver it.
The Eco Travel Foundation is legally established as a South African Non-Profit Company. Its founding programme, the Climate Performance Programme, is already working with operational tourism data and participating properties, and pilot training and the Knowledge Series are already under way.
Other elements of the Foundation’s longer-term model—including membership, expanded training, formal certification, collaborative research and conservation or community funding mechanisms—are still being developed by the directors and programme partners.
Established
- The Eco Travel Foundation NPC
- A founding board of four directors
- The Climate Performance Programme as the founding programme
- A live property assessment and public directory
- Technical assessment support from ETC Africa
- A growing operational evidence base
- Pilot training and the Climate Performance Knowledge Series
In development
- The longer-term membership framework
- Expanded training and wider industry learning
- Additional partnerships and funding
- Conservation and community support mechanisms
- Formal certification with independent audit and decision procedures
- Finalisation of formal policies and public reporting structures
- Geographic and programme expansion
We are publishing the Foundation while it develops because transparency should begin at the start—not once every answer appears complete.
Governance
Responsible stewardship begins with clear roles.
The Eco Travel Foundation is governed by its directors in accordance with its responsibilities as a South African Non-Profit Company.
The board is responsible for protecting the Foundation’s purpose, overseeing its programmes and finances, managing conflicts of interest and ensuring that the Foundation’s purpose is not subordinated to commercial interests.
Founding directors.
The founding board brings experience across climate and environmental practice, tourism, communications, health, community wellbeing and international development.
Duncan Pritchard
Director
Profile coming soon
Vinoth Liyanage
Director
Profile coming soon
Esther Ruempol
Director
Profile coming soon
Thirza de Jong
Director
Profile coming soon
Programme partners
Built through complementary roles.
The Foundation's work has grown through collaboration between tourism, climate, conservation and travel partners.
ETC Africa
Technical Assessment & Benchmarking Partner
Carbon measurement, evidence review, training, contextual benchmarking and practical carbon performance analysis supporting the Climate Performance Programme.
The Eco Travel Boutique
Founding Tourism Partner
Tourism relationships, pilot development and implementation support, and connections between participating properties and travellers.
kimkim
Founding Pilot Funding Partner
Catalytic funding supported the original climate action pilot and helped establish participating property baselines, training and programme development.
Wilderness Leadership School
Pilot Implementation & Conservation Partner
Implementation support during the original pilot, alongside conservation leadership, wilderness learning and connections with tourism’s wider contribution to nature and communities.
Technical delivery, funding and tourism partnerships are distinct contributions. Partner involvement does not, by itself, establish independent assurance or certification. The Foundation is designed to have an identity and mandate distinct from any single funder, technical provider or commercial partner.
What comes next
Building beyond one pilot.
The Foundation’s immediate task is to consolidate what the climate action pilot is teaching us: how tourism properties gather evidence, where operational emissions occur, what makes comparison meaningful and which tools help businesses improve.
From there, the Foundation aims to extend participation, strengthen shared industry knowledge and develop credible ways for tourism to support climate, conservation and community priorities.
Grow the evidence
Include more operating contexts and build more comparable reporting years.
Share the learning
Turn emerging patterns into practical resources, training and informed industry discussion.
Connect impact
Develop transparent partnerships that link tourism activity with credible conservation and community action.
Help shape the next chapter
A Foundation built through participation.
We welcome tourism properties, travel businesses, technical specialists, conservation organisations and aligned funders who want to help build a more credible response to tourism's environmental impact.
Measured. Benchmarked. Tracked.