In this exclusive interview, we sit down with Joy Martinello, the visionary founder of Wild Nectar Immersive Travel Collection, a company dedicated to offering sustainable, eco-conscious travel experiences. With a 19-year career in the travel industry, Joy has seen the industry’s impact on the environment firsthand and is committed to creating a new way of exploring the world—one that aligns adventure with environmental responsibility. In our conversation, Joy shares her journey, insights on the future of sustainable travel, and advice for business leaders looking to embrace sustainability.
Contents
- 1 Joy, thank you for being here! Tell us a little bit about you and your background:
- 2 What advice would you give to other CEOs or business leaders who are just beginning to incorporate sustainability into their operations?
- 3 Can you share a success story where your company’s sustainability efforts directly benefited your bottom line?
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- 5 What inspired you to focus on sustainability in your business model, and how has that vision evolved over time?
- 6 How do you balance profitability with your sustainability goals? Do you find it challenging to align both?
- 7 Can you share an example of a significant challenge your company faced in its sustainability journey, and how you overcame it?
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- 9 How do you see the role of sustainability evolving in your industry over the next five to ten years?
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- 11 What can the average person do to make a difference?
- 12 Joy, thank you for joining us today at Green.org to share your experience in sustainable travel.
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- 14 Share this:
Joy, thank you for being here! Tell us a little bit about you and your background:
For 19 years, I’ve had the wonderful good fortune to work in the travel industry. Travel is a happy business, and I love helping people get excited about all the amazing experiences they are about to have on a beautifully designed trip. My passion as a travel planner is to listen deeply to my travelers to see what would bring them the most pleasure, and then to design a trip that will be just right for them.
I’ve worked for a destination management company bringing travelers into Santa Fe. I sold adventure travel — especially small expedition ships — for 11 years. I was a West Coast Director for a huge mass market travel agency chain. And I designed polar expeditions for one the world’s top luxury operators. That’s what I was doing when the pandemic hit. And when I was laid off from that role, some deep soul searching found me asking myself how can I use my talents to do the most good in the world?
I’ve long felt the travel industry wasn’t doing enough to protect the planet from the effects of climate change. Did you know that travel generates 8% of all CO2? Travel is a luxury, and though we humans love it, we could live without it. As climate change comes on full force, there’s a possibility that travel, as we know it, could disappear. If we don’t bring all the impacts travel has on the planet into balance, traveling won’t make sense when compared to rising tides, heat waves, and other climate challenges that are on the horizon.
During the pandemic, I started Wild Nectar Immersive Travel Collection to see if a travel retailer employing the skills of a sustainability expert could assess the impacts a trip is having on the planet, digging into the data so our clients could travel with confidence that they were doing everything they could travel responsibly. People started traveling in spring of 2022 and it’s been an exciting journey ever since.
What advice would you give to other CEOs or business leaders who are just beginning to incorporate sustainability into their operations?
Our sustainability expert, Bronwyn Worrick, has been a full on ESG consultant and she describes how other companies she’s worked for are being required by shareholders to produce comprehensive ESG reports. If you’re just starting a business, I recommend looking into B Corp status and designing your policies and procedures to fit their requirements right from the beginning. In future, having B Corp status is going to be very important. We’ve been doing this to prepare for our own B Corp certification.
If you own an existing company, hire an ESG consultant to realistically assess where you are and be prepared to make the necessary changes to bring your company into compliance with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDGs) and other frameworks your consultant will recommend. Now is the time to make sure all businesses are operating as sustainably as possible.
Because our company has a sustainability focus, every new client we attract, every trip we sell, every supplier relationship we strengthen is due to our sustainability ethos and efforts. One of our most prominent successes comes from having trip operators who are cheerleaders for what we’re trying to accomplish. These trip operators have given us 20% commission while most travel retailers make 10-15% commission. This commission level contributes hugely to our financial health, and we are honored and inspired by these trip operators who support our Eco Score approach for our trips, and are cheering us on to succeed.
What inspired you to focus on sustainability in your business model, and how has that vision evolved over time?
During the Covid-19 downtime, I took a long look at my skill set and what I might do to make a difference in the world. I’d had a solid career in the travel industry. I was always very good at travel planning plus I had two previous businesses of my own, so I understood the entrepreneur’s journey. Travel is a privilege, and I’ve long felt the industry wasn’t doing enough to monitor the carbon footprint of an activity that is an honor to experience.
So I asked myself, what if a travel sales and marketing company, a third party who was not a travel operator, could keep a close eye on what travel operators were doing, could offer Eco Scores™ that represent the travel operators’ sustainability efforts and could provide clients with the most immersive, wind-in-your-hair travel experiences all at the same time? Could a company who understands what kind of deeply affecting, exciting adventures travelers want, plus the desire for different levels of luxury, also be a force for promoting sustainability?
Fast forward to today and that’s what my team and I are currently doing. Assessing trips and trip operators is a “Mount Everest” of a project, and our Envision and WELL Building credentialed sustainability expert, Bronwyn Worrick has refined our assessment process based on 3 of the 5 P’s from the UNSDG’s. Ours are People, Planet & Prosperity as these are the three pillars that are most relevant to travel. We have three levels of assessment we put our operators through:
1) Publicly Available Information
2) An In-Depth Eco Questionnaire
3) On Site Trip Assessments
We then base the operator’s current Eco Score™ on whichever level they are at and note that level on our website. We are still fairly close to the beginning of this process and have a long way to go. Creating the assessment process has been a fascinating challenge and we look forward to growing a big company that can support a large cohort of sustainability specialists to help us assess all our operators and trips. So book with us so we can dig more deeply into the data!
Watching mist rise over a moon-like Icelandic landscape, leaning your head out the window of a small ship in Alaska to see two humpback whales breach right in front of you, having an elderly Costa Rican lady welcome you into her kitchen and show you how to make tortillas–these experiences change people, have changed me as they all happened to me. I want to make sure more people can have these life-changing experiences and still protect the absolute source of them all: our beautiful, irreplaceable planet.
How do you balance profitability with your sustainability goals? Do you find it challenging to align both?
Our profitability is directly tied to our sustainability goals, as the future of our company depends on travelers’ increasing desire to travel sustainably. Digging into the sustainability data of our trip operators is not only our unique selling point but also a key driver of our financial success.
In this way, our business model and sustainability efforts are fully aligned. As we meet our sustainability standards and data collecting goals, we also enhance our profitability. While balancing both can be challenging in some industries, we see it as our path to huge success in a growing market of conscious travelers.
Starting a travel company with a sustainability focus has been a significant challenge in and of itself, mostly because it’s involved educating travelers. Many luxury travelers, even those who are eco-conscious, have said, “I never realized I could try to travel sustainably!” So there’s this awareness issue that we are working hard to address.
While our business is growing, I wouldn’t say we’ve fully overcome this hurdle. I believe that as climate events become more dramatic, more people will be motivated to seek out sustainable travel options. In the meantime, we continue to spread the word.
The real challenge we’ve had to overcome is getting the company started—building a dedicated team and growing our client base in a way that aligns with our values. That Wild Nectar exists and thrives is a huge win yet there are still challenges ahead like the need to become a larger company to support our sustainability initiatives.
How do you see the role of sustainability evolving in your industry over the next five to ten years?
More travel companies are thinking about sustainability, and a few are becoming B Corps. We haven’t seen any retailers digging into the sustainability data for trip operators like we are. There’s a lot of greenwashing going on for sure. It’s very hard to know what companies are actually doing vs. what they say they are doing. That’s what’s inspiring us to actually look at the data.
Climate change is coming at us like a huge tidal wave. The more powerfully it impacts our daily lives, the more driven all of us will become to make more sustainable choices. Over the next five to ten years, travel companies will be required to implement sustainability practices or they’re going to be seen as extremely undesirable options.
If people are still traveling in 10 years, it might be because a company like ours or the trip operators we work with who are implementing sustainability plans had the foresight to monitor their impact early on. We’re certainly pouring our heart and soul into making this future of 100% sustainable travel a possibility.
What can the average person do to make a difference?
The average person, each of us, needs to look closely at our impacts and be honest with ourselves. Everything we do has an impact on the UNSDG’s 5 P’s: People, Planet, Prosperity (for all people), Peace (eliminating global and personal conflicts), and Partnerships (forming mutually beneficial bonds with all nations). None of us can live a perfect life yet there are choices each of us can make that will reduce negative impacts on our precious world. Pick one or two changes you can make to your lifestyle and do those.
Be joyful! Enjoy all the pleasures this amazing life has to offer. Eat well. Love well. Travel. The happier you are, the more happiness you’ll have to share with others. Just please keep in mind the consequences of your actions. The choices you make do make a difference.
Travel is adventurous, surprising, nourishing, inspiring, and helps us discover compassion for others. We should keep doing it! And we should be sure to travel as sustainably as possible. At Wild Nectar, we’re on a mission to make it easier to do just that. : )
As Joy Martinello continues to pioneer a new path for sustainable travel through Wild Nectar, her passion for both adventure and environmental stewardship shines through. Her vision of a world where travelers can experience life-changing trips while minimizing their impact on the planet is not just a business model, but a heartfelt mission. With her guidance and expertise, the future of travel may be more sustainable and enriching than ever. If you’re seeking adventure that leaves a positive mark, Wild Nectar offers the perfect balance of luxury, sustainability, and unforgettable experiences.
Dr. Alexander Tabibi is an entrepreneur, investor, and advocate for sustainable innovation with a deep commitment to leveraging technology for environmental and social good. As a thought leader at the intersection of business and sustainability, Dr. Tabibi brings a strategic vision to Green.org, helping guide its mission to inspire global climate awareness and actionable change.
With a background in both medicine and business, Dr. Tabibi combines analytical rigor with entrepreneurial insight.