Rainforest Alliance Verification

Since it was founded, Apus Peru has carried the ethos of “responsible, sustainable and ethical tourism” as a slogan, and at the heart of what we saw as important in the Cusco tourism industry. We didn’t want to create another agency that struggled along, exploiting its workers and the environment and not being terribly successful in any field.

In 2008 we set out sustainability policies and started training our staff. We also sought volunteers to evaluate our environmental policies on treks.  Their feedback and recommendations were vital to lifting our service, as were the efforts of our guides and cooks, and of course feedback from clients.

In 2011, we decided that it was not enough to call ourselves “sustainable” – we needed to have others confirm our practices.  We signed up for internationally renowned Rainforest Alliance’s Verification Program which consists of a three part Verification process and capacitacion for aspects of your business that you can improve.

We were the first trekking agency in Cusco to seek this verification.

We passed phase one of the Verification in March 2011, and have since been working on various elements of our business that needed improvement, including aspects of our attitude to the environment, providing measurements of energy and water use, and also translating our entirely English website to Spanish.

The Rainforest Alliance Capacitacion has been incredibly valuable and we are extremely glad that we took this step “up to the next level” of sustainability.

We plan to submit to Phase 2 & 3 of the Verification in 2012 and hope to maintain our treks at an affordable level for the eco minded traveller.