Explore Worldwide has announced the promotion of Hannah Methven to head of sustainability.

Methven (pictured above) has worked for Explore for more than 10 years, and has most recently been responsible for the company’s biggest collection of trips as worldwide program manager.

For the last five of these years, she has been an integral member of Explore’s Responsible Business Forum, working with a collection of employees around the business to drive forward sustainability initiatives and implement changes both overseas and in the UK.

“With 10 years’ experience in building and overseeing our tour program, I’m very close to sustainability developments on our trips – how much we’ve already achieved and what potential there is for further improvements,” Methven said.

“But I’m also hugely passionate about making changes to our office environment. We have some excellent strategies already in place – we now need to activate those initiatives and continue to develop them further.

“Involving travel agents, tour leaders, and all the teams at Explore will be crucial to achieving our sustainability goals.”

Methven, who is currently studying a masters degree in sustainable tourism management, has more than 20 years’ experience working in the travel industry, and has always travelled as sustainably as possible.

“While I didn’t necessarily appreciate it at the time, I’ve always preferred a more sustainable form of travel,” she said.

“Staying in smaller, locally-run accommodation, getting to know local people and travelling slowly by public transport et cetera. It always felt a more authentic way to travel, and nowadays we also appreciate the sustainable nature of slower, community-focused trips.”

Methven replaces Prue Stone who after two years as head of sustainability for Explore, has been promoted to a role of the same title for Hotelplan in the UK.

Stone will continue to oversee Explore’s sustainability strategy alongside that of sister companies InnTravel, Inghams and Santa’s Lapland.

The next steps for Methven and the responsible business team at Explore will be recruiting a ‘rewilding partner’ for the mitigation part of the company’s carbon reduction strategy.

“While we appreciate we’re one of the market leaders at Explore in terms of sustainable travel, there’s still a long way to go, and still so much we can do. I can’t wait to get started!”