Impact
Our mission
Sustayn’s Story
Sustayn began with a forester’s question: if we look after woodland so carefully, why do we think so little about the carbon our holidays leave behind?
After more than two decades of tree work across the UK with J D Forestry, John Wood had seen both sides: how much nature gives us, and how easily it is lost. Travel was one of the places where good intentions most often got lost: the greener option was hard to find, and nobody showed you what difference it made.
So Sustayn was built to make the greener choice the easy one:
- Places to stay in the UK chosen for how they care for the environment.
- The CO₂ of every trip shown before you book, for the journey and for the stay.
- A tree you can plant in a couple of taps, to help balance the carbon from your trip.
- Green Points for the greener choices you make (booking an eco-friendly stay, planting a tree, sharing what worked), and a leaderboard that ranks members by CO₂ saved, not by how little they travel.
- Green Feed, where members share the places and ideas that worked for them.
We believe that small choices, made by many people, add up. Every trip booked the greener way and every tree planted is a step towards cleaner air for all of us.
Who is John Wood?
John Wood is the founder of Sustayn.
John has spent his working life among trees. He is behind J D Forestry, a Yorkshire arboriculture and forestry company with more than 20 years of experience, working across the UK on tree care, woodland and forestry management, conservation, habitat management and ecologically sensitive tree clearance. The work is done by fully qualified arborists and forestry specialists, with safety and care for the environment in everything they do.
For as long as he can remember, John has loved the outdoors (woods, hedgerows, open country) and has cared for it: planting, managing and protecting trees so that they can go on doing their quiet work of cleaning the air and giving wildlife a home.
Years of looking after woodland taught him something simple: every tree counts, and so does every choice we make. He started Sustayn so that more of us can make those choices together: travelling around the UK in a way that is kinder to nature, emitting less carbon dioxide, and putting back what we take by planting trees.