Lessons from Antarctica

The most pristine landscapes on the planet are found in Antarctica. Untouched by humans beside a few research stations and only four deep field tourism companies, it is the ultimate testing ground for the footprint of our activities. 



Eleni Antoniades is an environmental scientist that has been working with White Desert, a company that offers deep field experiences in their own camps on the icy continent. Following the strictest environmental rules you can find for any sustainable tourism activites, where everything that goes in must come out, including your waste and sewage, I am pretty sure there are things or two we can learn from their materials, the technology they use and processes. 



In this episode of The Nordic Journey Eleni takes us on a trip into the extreme environment of Antarctica, telling us about the Blue Ice runway they built, the energy experiments they are conducting, their use of SAF and environmental testing which could be applied in the North as well. 



Further resources mentioned in the podcast are:



https://www.environmentalhub.co.uk/ Environmental Hub Discover Antarctica course, endorsed by the Institution of Environmental Sciences. The pages on the course  second run are being updated today/ tomorrow and will be live by the end of tomorrow    

Eleni Antoniades - Institution of Environmental Sciences (IES) | LinkedIn
I do publish a number of Antarctic case studies on my Linkedin profile    

https://white-desert.com/about/sustainability This is where you can find the link to the Environmental Impact Assessment  (EIA) for White Desert, known as IEEs in Antarctica and you can also find out more about White Desert’s sustainability efforts  

https://www.ats.aq/devAS/e/EP/EIAList If you would like to read more Environmental Impact Assessments and find out how other tour operators assess and manage their environmental impacts, as well as reading about National Antarctic Programmes, this is the central database for all Antarctic EIAs.