Skip to content By traveling with Metropolitan Touring and/or staying at our properties, all the carbon produced is offset through our Carbon Neutral program, run by our holding group’s foundation, Fundación Futuro.
This is a permanent, far-reaching, and ambitious initiative — and we cannot do it alone.
Through your investment, and ours, we will expand the current Mashpi-Tayra Reserve from more than 3,200 hectares (7,900 acres) to around 5,000 hectares (12,355 acres). Beyond the reserve itself, we will create biological corridors across a further 15,000 hectares (37,000 acres) of the Chocó Bioregion — continuous strips of restored land that enable CO₂ absorption, species migration, and proper foraging — covering an area equal to nearly 28,000 football fields in one of the most biodiverse places on Earth.
This is what carbon neutral innovations look like at scale: measurable, science-backed, and designed to grow with every traveler who chooses to be part of it.
Managed by Fundación Futuro, our program also works hand in hand with local communities of the Chocó — improving agroecological practices, strengthening education, and supporting community governance to build livelihoods that are as sustainable as the ecosystems they depend on. This is the foundation of true carbon neutral tourism: people and planet, together.
Our carbon-neutral travel program meets the strict international guidelines set by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change of the United Nations. It has been audited under the ISO 14064 Standard and was initially certified through Germany’s TÜV Rheinland — one of the world’s most rigorous independent verification bodies. In 2025, our total measured emissions reached 15,287 tCO₂e across all our operations in Ecuador. This measurement was independently verified in our hotels by SGS under the INTE/ISO 14064-1:2019 standard — ensuring every number behind our program is transparent, auditable, and real.
Since 2023, we have offset the carbon produced through Fundación Futuro’s NFTrees platform, which employs blockchain technology. The platform emits Non-Fungible Tokens that certify the forest we have protected to offset our carbon — down to the level of a pixel representing 10 m by 10 m on a satellite map. These tokens are non-transferable, traceable on the blockchain, and can’t be duplicated — so they are completely trustworthy and transparent.
Any gas that traps heat in the atmosphere, contributing to the greenhouse effect (and climate change).
When increased quantities of greenhouse gasses (e.g. carbon dioxide, methane) in the air trap the heat from the Sun and cause a gradual rise in the temperature of the Earth’s atmosphere
The total amount of greenhouse gases emitted by an individual, company, or activity. Measuring it is the first step toward carbon neutral travel.
When greenhouse gas emissions are offset by ensuring that an equivalent amount of CO2 is captured by “carbon sinks”, such as forests, the ocean, soil, etc.
A UNESCO designation of an ecosystem that warrants protection from national governments and non-governmental organizations in order to promote its conservation and sustainable use.
Areas of the world that are highly biodiverse, but that are under threat. Specifically, this refers to 25 biologically rich areas around the world that have lost at least 70% of their original habitat.
Continuous strips of restored land that allow for migration of species, adequate mating strategies, and proper foraging.
A biodiversity hotspot and bioregion that goes from the southern edge of Panama to the northern part of Ecuador.
A portion of the Choco Bioregion that runs into the Andes Mountain range, covering 706,721 acres. It was declared a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve in 2018. Fun fact: the varying altitudes provide for a series of microclimates and ecosystems. There is an increase in the number of species for every few feet you climb.
One of 17 nations harboring the majority of the Earth’s species and a high number of endemic species, as identified by Conservation International. Fun fact: Ecuador is one of the megadiverse countries of the world, having the most biodiversity per square mile of any nation.
Our biggest motivator is the now-acknowledged global reality of climate change — a challenge we all share responsibility for. As pioneers in carbon-neutral, regenerative travel, we believe that tourism must be part of the solution, not the problem.
This project is being carried out through the protection of the rainforest in the Choco Bioregion of Ecuador, a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve. After much research and study, it has been determined that in order to protect the forest, our conservation effort needs to be rolled out on a number of fronts.
Through the Fundación Futuro, we have formed partnerships to rent land from local farmers and landowners or will be paying them a fee to ensure nature-friendly uses of the land that are kind to people, kind to biodiversity, and kind to the Earth. Additionally, other swaths of forest are to be purchased and tacked on to the current Mashpi-Tayra Reserve (currently nearly 3,200 hectares, or 7,900 acres).
This multifaceted effort creates biological corridors — continuous strips of restored land that enable species migration, mating, and foraging — linking protected areas across the Chocó and financing more sustainable livelihoods for local communities. It is a model that reflects the true principles of carbon-neutral tourism: systemic, community-led, and designed to last.
For us, this project goes beyond carbon footprint offsetting. It is about conservation, biodiversity, and a joint community effort.
We contract the environmental consultant SAMBITO to measure annually the environmental impact of our operations in each of our wholly owned properties in Ecuador, as well as the impact of our operations carried out by our suppliers.
We want to ensure that our offsetting initiative is responsibly handled. This is a serious, long-term commitment from the company, which is why we have a strong due-diligence process to ensure that the methodologies and standards employed by our partners and ourselves are up to the highest international standards.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change of the United Nations recommends the use of specific methodologies and guidelines when it comes to measuring carbon emissions. We have aligned our strategy completely to those recommendations.
Additionally, because we wanted the right know-how for this endeavor, we allied ourselves with environmental consulting firm SAMBITO, and we chose a highly-regarded, reputable external third-party provider of product testing and certification, the German company TÜV Rheinland, for our original certification process.
Since 2023, we offset all carbon produced through Fundación Futuro’s NFTrees platform, which employs blockchain technology. The platform issues Non-Fungible Tokens certifying the exact forest protected to offset our emissions — down to a pixel representing 10×10 m on a satellite map. These tokens are non-transferable, traceable, and impossible to duplicate — making Metropolitan Touring one of the most rigorously verified carbon neutral travel companies in the industry today.
To measure how much CO₂ the forest can sequester, our environmental consultant SAMBITO performed a thorough, tree-by-tree assessment of every area designated for carbon offsetting. The methodology is rigorous — and the results are what give our carbon neutral travel program its scientific credibility.
Each tree in the parcel is then measured (at chest height) and a calculation is done based on the circumference and height of the tree, the type of tree, and the tree’s biomass. This calculation allows one to determine how much CO2 each tree is able to absorb. In the Choco, specifically, it has been determined that the forest can absorb, on average, 287.02 tons of CO2 per hectare (287.02 Tons CO2/ha).
The international price of carbon is not yet regulated or fixed. It varies from a range of $1 per ton offset up to $40! There are even instances of higher prices, straddling the 80- or 100-dollar mark. In such a variable context, Metropolitan Touring has chosen to define a set of criteria or “values” to reflect, in our price, the real costs of capturing the carbon in forests, including the cost of protecting the land where carbon is to be sequestered.
All things considered, we have calculated the cost of offsetting each ton of CO₂ in a mature forest at $16 per ton — a figure grounded in transparency and aligned with the standards of responsible carbon-neutral tourism. This figure may rise in the future as land conservation costs increase and carbon markets continue to evolve.
Book your trip as you normally would through Metropolitan Touring. Our consultant’s certified calculator will measure your carbon footprint for each itinerary and apply a carbon-neutral travel fee — priced according to the type and length of your journey. Your investment goes directly toward the purchase or long-term lease of lands in the Chocó Bioregion, set aside exclusively for conservation.
And that’s it. You will have booked a once-in-a-lifetime expedition without leaving a carbon footprint — while simultaneously helping preserve the Andean Chocó and the destinations you have come to know and love. This is what joining the carbon neutral movement looks like in practice: effortless for the traveler, transformational for the planet.
ISO, the International Organization for Standardization, operates with the sole purpose of promoting worldwide proprietary, industrial, and commercial standards. Different standards have different codes, and the ISO 14064-1 standard specifies principles and requirements at the organization level for quantification and reporting of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and removals.
It sets the principles and requirements for designing, developing, managing, reporting, and verifying a company’s full GHG inventory — ensuring that every claim made by carbon neutral travel companies is backed by a transparent, auditable process. You can find out more about the ISO 14064-1 standard here.
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