From Wanderlust to Watts: How Discover Adventure is Powering Sustainable Travel - One Solar Panel at a Time!

In the pursuit of sustainability, many individuals and businesses are taking significant steps to reduce their carbon footprint. At Discover Adventure, we work tirelessly to ensure that our trips have the lowest environmental impact and the most positive social impact on our destinations. We employ local people to support our trips, bringing money into the local economy, and all of our trips require you to either cycle or walk from one destination to another, meaning minimal transport emissions. Although some of our trips provide accommodation in hotels, many are with small, family-run guesthouses and even camping.

However, we’re all guilty of looking at wider sustainability issues and sometimes miss the impact we could be having closer to home. For us, our sustainability journey took an ambitious turn in the winter of 2018 when we embarked on the construction of our new DA office, situated just a few miles out of Salisbury.

Our previous office at Throope Down House had been our much-loved space for over 15 years. It served us well, but as our commitment to sustainability grew, we envisioned an office space that echoed our values. We aimed for a modern building that not only housed our operations efficiently but also championed eco-consciousness. The result was a state-of-the-art building comprising of four separate offices. These spaces were meticulously designed to be light-filled, airy, and built to the highest standards of energy efficiency. However, constructing an eco-friendly office was only the beginning...

From the outset, 100% of our electricity has been sourced from renewable energy. However, we wanted to take it one step further. In December 2023 we installed 69 Trina Vertex Solar Panels onto the office roof, nudging us closer towards self-sufficiency in energy generation. At present, these solar panels are contributing between 25-33% of our building’s electricity needs, and we’re anticipating that in spring and summer when light is more plentiful (we can’t wait!), the panels will cover 100% of our electricity requirements.

Along with the solar panels, we installed two Air Source Heat Pumps, which are sustainable heating solutions. These pumps operate on electricity sourced entirely from renewable energy, derived both from the grid and generated by our solar panels. This system ensures that even the heat used to keep our workspace comfortable aligns with our eco-friendly ethos.

Our journey towards sustainability, both at home and further afield, will always have a way to go, and the work doesn’t end here. We’re continuously seeking innovative ways to increase our positive impact on the planet. And we’re feeling pretty excited about the way it’s going!