Destinations and businesses have tremendous agency to do good in their communities and the world. We demonstrate our commitment to sustainability guided by the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals in the following ways. Our work focuses on SDGs: 4 - Quality Education, 5 - Gender Equality, 10 - Reduced Inequalities, 11 - Sustainable Cities and Communities and 14 - Life Below Water.

We’re B Corp Certified

In March 2024, Swell Impact became a Certified B Corporation. As a B Corp, we’re honoured to be part of a global community of businesses that meet high standards of social and environmental impact. The B Corp movement is a global movement of People Using Business as a Force for Good®. Together, we are shifting our economic system from profiting only the few to benefitting all, from concentrating wealth and power to ensuring equity, from extraction to regeneration, and from prioritizing individualism to embracing interdependence. As a business serving the global tourism community, we’re on a mission to ensure destinations and communities flourish. We believe travel can also be a force for good.

Educating Girls and Supporting Reproductive Rights

When you choose Swell Impact, you also support Plan Canada’s Because I am a Girl project to help girls access basic human rights, including education and access to maternal, newborn, sexual, and reproductive healthcare. Access to these basic human rights allows girls to transform their lives and become agents of change in their communities. Swell Impact (formerly Swell Made Co.) has partnered with Plan Canada since 2013. 5% of our revenues are formally donated to this project and other charities to champion gender parity and sustainability each year.

We recognize that supporting this cause is our most significant commitment to fight climate change. While the small things count, Project Drawdown identifies the four most effective strategies for mitigating global warming: reducing food waste, educating girls, providing family and reproductive healthcare, and shifting to a plant-rich diet. We are committed to educating girls and youth and advocating for the health of women and girls at home and in communities worldwide. Additionally, we are formally committed to donating the equivalent of 5% or more of our time through pro-bono services to women-owned and underrepresented entrepreneurs in tourism.

Respect for Indigenous Land and Knowledges

Swell Impact Brands respectfully and gratefully acknowledges that it is founded in Mi'kma'ki, the ancestral and unceded territory of the Mi'kmaq People. This territory is covered by the “Treaties of Peace and Friendship.”  We strive to understand and honour their teachings in our work daily. Each day, we honour their teachings of reciprocity and respect—to ourselves, one another, the earth, the past, and the future. With humility, we honour Indigenous knowledges as we learn and expand our worldview. There is much we will never know or understand, but our commitment to reconciliation and convergence is indefinite.

In 2022, we became an honoured seed partner of the TRACKS Youth Program. TRACKS (Trent Aboriginal Cultural Knowledge and Science) facilitates dynamic, land-based programming for youth (ages 6-18) that braids multiple scientific approaches by focusing on Indigenous ways of knowing and being. While our partnership was paused in 2023 as we continued learning at Trent University, we anticipate full participation in 2024.

TRACKS is hosted by Trent University on the treaty and traditional territory of the Michi Saagiig Anishinaabeg within the Indigenous Environmental Studies and Sciences Program (IESS). The program operates with the founding partner organization Kawartha World Issues Centre and the First Peoples House of Learning.

Justice, Equity, Diversity & Inclusion

To make the world a better and fairer place for everyone, we must promote diversity and equality in all areas of our work. As a small collective, we recognize the importance of working with a wide range of partners, suppliers, organizations, fellow entrepreneurs, and collaborators to achieve our goals. We are formally committed to actively seeking out small businesses owned or led by underrepresented populations and ensuring they make up at least 40-50% of our partnerships.

In addition, we are dedicated to diversifying our perspectives and strategies by hiring independent contractors from equity-seeking groups who will help to bring new voices and ideas to the table. Our commitment to justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion is ongoing, and we will continue to prioritize these values in all aspects of our work. These are just two ways in which we are taking a stand with diverse communities in the face of oppression and systemic racism.