Green Tourism and Our Green Journey

Since the start of Argyll Cruising the business has committed to being as sustainable and responsible as possible. When original owner, Iain Duncan, first converted Splendour, a traditional wooden trawler who had outlived her usefulness as a working fishing boat, but serves magnificently in her new role as a small-boat cruising vessel, the Argyll Cruising green journey began – and we’re proud to keep striving to become ever-greener. Splendour boasts a magnificent Gardner engine, which is known worldwide for economy and reliability. The engine is also perfect for economical cruising and good for the marine environment. The engine is ‘keel cooled’, which means there is no overboard discharge from the cooling system and therefore no possibility of heavy metal contaminants entering the ecosystem.

We love the beautiful part of the world that we operate in and, above all, want to show it off to our guests, whilst making sure we do no harm in the process. When cruising the gorgeous West Coast of Scotland, we respectfully look out for our wonderful native wildlife – from gannets to puffins, dolphins to whales – whilst also engaging with the very special local communities we visit, going ashore and sampling the delights they have to offer, among other things. On board we use as much locally sourced produce and products as we can, aiming to keep our carbon footprint to a minimum, whilst supporting our local community. And we’re lucky that we have some of the best produce around, such as locally caught seafood and locally shot venison. You can read more about this here.

Whilst sustainable and responsible tourism has always been a goal of ours, this is the first year that we have partnered with Green Tourism. They are a brilliant resource promoting responsible tourism across the globe. We’re delighted that in our first year we’ve been awarded Gold in their accreditation scheme, meaning we have successfully demonstrated our commitment to being a responsible tourism business. We scored particularly highly in the areas of sustainable food and drink, catering for all diets, promoting our destinations in a responsible way and a generally excellent awareness and knowledge of sustainable practices throughout what we do. With Green Tourism’s advice and support we’ll continue to monitor our environmental impact and look for ways to positively contribute to our local area and beyond.

You can read up on our sustainable tourism policy, which covers everything from water usage to public transport, and everything in-between.