Three swimmers swimming parallel to the shore. Rocky cliffs in the background.

Outdoor Swimmer – Environmental Statement

We use carbon balanced paper from sustainable sources to minimise our environmental impact

Outdoor swimming is an activity that immerses you in the natural environment. We, and our readers, therefore take environmental responsibility seriously.

Last year, through working with Denmaur Paper Media, we balanced almost 9 tonnes of CO2 by using “Carbon Balanced Paper”. Our paper is also FCS & PEFC chain-of-custody certified.

Responsible paper

Carbon Balanced is a World Land Trust programme that enables individuals and organisations to offset their residual greenhouse gas emissions through the protection and restoration of carbon-rich wildlife habitats in the tropics. Current carbon projects include an important area of the Annamite Mountains in Vietnam, one of the most biologically diverse countries on Earth.

World Land Trust is working with Viet Nature Conservation Centre to protect the entire forest of the Khe Nuoc Trong, an area covering nearly 50,000 acres. By protecting this important region, approximately 50,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions will be absorbed each year. Previous WLT projects include more than 700,000 acres of habitat in Africa, Asia, Central America, South America and the UK.

We include the World Land Trust Carbon Balanced Paper logo within our magazine as a visual mark of our responsibility to reduce our carbon emissions and minimise our impact on climate change. The benefits are measurable and we receive annual certification confirming the carbon reductions and the areas of land protected.

Carbon Balanced Paper is an additional certification to that from PEFC – the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification, a global alliance of national forest certification systems. PEFC is an international non-profit, non-governmental organization, dedicated to promoting sustainable forest management through independent third-party certification.

Forest certification provides a mechanism to promote the sustainable management of our forests and ensures that forest-based products reaching the marketplace have been sourced from sustainably managed forests.

Responsible printing

Outdoor Swimmer magazine is printed by Pensord, which has held accreditations for PEFC and FSC papers and the ISO14001 Environmental Standard since 2008. The inks used for printing are vegetable based derived from soya and rapeseed. Our cover seals are water based.

Pensord has made significant investment in new energy efficient printers and equipment, and this process is ongoing through continued investment. In 2012 Pensord achieved zero to landfill and have maintained this and all other environmental accreditations ever since.

Pensord implements an environmental management system which satisfies the requirements of ISO 14001:2004.

Responsible packaging

We deliver our magazines in recyclable paper envelopes rather than plastic.

Swimming for good

In addition to the above, we partner with ClimateGames to create challenges that enable our readers to remove plastic from the ocean through swimming. To date, outdoor swimmer readers have removed almost 200kg of plastic from the ocean by completing our ClimateGames challenges. We also support and amplify campaigns to tackle water pollution and provide expert opinions on the impact of pollution on swimmers to other news outlets.

Find out more

www.carbonbalancedpaper.com

www.pefc.org

www.pensord.co.uk

www.climategames.com