Joro Experiences was founded in 2017 by Henry Comyn, Duncan Over and Justin Packshaw, united in their belief that travel can be a force for good, improve livelihoods and help conservation efforts across the globe, while linking into many of the UN’s 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.
Today, clients return to Joro Experiences again and again for sustainable adventures that no other company offers. From huge family reunions to complete cultural immersion – via audacious adventures and epic sabbaticals – the Joro team spends months planning each exclusive trip with meticulous attention to detail, ensuring its clients have a positive impact on the places they visit. To this end, in 2020 Joro co-founded not-for-profit The Conscious Travel Foundation to help other travel businesses improve sustainability practices and create a community that’s passionate about safeguarding treasured, unspoilt destinations.
Despite the complex restrictions and unpredictability of travel in 2021, Joro continued creating extraordinary trips. Throughout the year, Joro reunited families through immersive desert island treasure hunts, facilitated the celebration of milestone moments in people’s lives on remote mountain tops and went on helping its clients to travel more sustainably. At the end of every trip, all clients are given impact reports showing how Joro mitigates and offsets their carbon footprint. The reports also show how clients’ trips directly support projects, such as planting coral reefs in French Polynesia to aid marine and wildlife conservation. Other projects and social enterprises that Joro has contributed to include the Islas Secas Foundation and Green Apple Foundation in Colombia, the Soneva Foundation, Virunga in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Bisate reforestation project in Rwanda.
While continuing to create extraordinary holidays for its clients, 2021 was the year in which Joro really doubled down on its sustainability commitment, proudly becoming a carbon neutral company. It was awarded B Corp Certification, signed the Glasgow Declaration and established an accurate way to measure scope one, two and three emissions. It also sponsored an initiative to provide a step-by-step guide for its entire supply chain on how to reduce its carbon emissions.
Another of Joro’s biggest achievements last year was the start of chairman Justin Packshaw’s scientific expedition to Antarctica, which had been over two years in the making. Working with NASA, the European Space Agency, Stanford University, the University of Central Florida and more, the data gathered throughout the expedition will help support future space exploration and arm experts across multiple fields with better understanding of the impact of climate change on the natural environment and how extreme conditions affect humans. This expedition was a true test of human endeavour and has inspired clients to set audacious goals to improve their lives and wellbeing – including summiting Mont Blanc, embarking on epic multiyear sailing expeditions and learning to cook with chefs around the world – all of which Joro is helping its clients to achieve.
‘The more you experience a local culture and environment, the likelier you are to respect it,’ says co-founder Henry Comyn, of Joro’s passion for using travel as a force for good. ‘Travel has huge potential to educate clients about our fragile planet and enable them to leave a positive legacy.’
