When planning an incentive trip, it is no longer enough just to consider minimising any negative impact on the environment, such as reducing the carbon footprint, managing waste sustainably or using resources more efficiently. Nowadays, it is also important to source activities that provide enriching experiences, have a clear purpose and a positive impact on the local area.
A good example of a business that promotes this type of activity is Humanside. For more than twenty years, it has been helping organisations and their teams to grow and transform themselves through personal development, motivation and commitment. They do this by connecting the needs of the business with those of the participants through meaningful teambuilding and incentive activities, while also generating CSR experiences that, rather than simply greenwashing, provide something genuinely useful for both the organising companies and the local environment.
“A good teambuilding activity must set challenges and seek group objectives”
Marc Ribas, one of the founders of Humanside, insists that business tourism “must distinguish between individual incentives, such as enjoying a pleasant walk or fine dining, and CSR or teambuilding experiences, which have other ingredients such as setting challenges using gamification and focusing on achieving objectives agreed together beforehand”. For Ribas, “critical thought and purpose are the keys to a good CSR action”. That means, “knowing why you are doing something and to what end”. For that reason, before creating or adapting an experience for an organiser, whether as a direct request from a company or through an intermediary, Humanside advise and collaborate with the administrations and bodies that play an important role in the proposed action.
One example of this type of meaningful teambuilding activity is Sand Traps, a project that has been run on various occasions by teams from Catalan and multinational companies. It was inspired by the need to recover the dune systems in Estartit-Pals Bay by protecting the natural marshes and beaches in this extremely precious environment in the Montgrí, Medes Islands and Baix Ter Natural Park. The activity consists of working as a team to install dune fences made of canes driven into the sand and supported by stakes and string (all made of organic materials), to create sand traps that will fix the dunes.
Another meaningful teambuilding activity organised by Humanside is Hi-Bird! This consists of building nest boxes to help attract up to eleven species of birds and bats. The teams are given a set of assembly instructions (in true flat-pack furniture tradition!) and they work together to build the bird boxes from pieces of wood.
Finally, in collaboration with Lloret Town Council and the environmental association Xatrac, Humanside has launched “The litoral [coastal] project”, an activity that involves clearing away invasive plant species from beaches and coastal rocks, both above and below the waterline, using goggles and other materials such as paddle boards and kayaks. Teams also construct nest boxes for tits and robins, native birds that must be preserved.
