And while he never set out for it to be a “movement” Lacoste says it is one of the key pillars of his social enterprise organisation.
“As the name suggests, it’s people in nature, the outdoors, moving and exercising with each other. It’s also sort of what we say the three best things in life [are]: being with friends, getting some vitamin D and exercising.
“It’s a really fascinating name. I guess it means lots of things to lots of people, but what it means to you is what really matters,” says Lacoste.
“If you look at…the social nature movement aspect, it is growing. We’re chasing our own tail at the moment and people are liking us and chasing us down to get our services.”
From bases in Auckland, Queenstown and Wanaka, Social Nature Movement is a mobile operation so when he gets a call, “we go places with clients, it’s niche, new, different”.
He says clients don’t want the four walls of the convention centre that might charge $1,000 a square foot, so he takes them to places like a private island with fifth generation family owners and thousands of kiwis in their natural habitat.
“We just come and plonk our tents, our marquees, and do our activities on their land.
“We work semi-exclusively with some lodges around the country that don’t have accommodation or don’t have enough accommodation. So we provide the accommodation or supplement what they do have,” Lacoste explains.
The activities Social Nature Movement provides can be day and night, indoor or outdoor, from wild kiwi bird spotting to stargazing and bioluminescent nighttime kayaking, where the water glows with life.
“A lot of it is bespoke. So customers say, these are our parameters.”
One of Lacoste’s best experiences is at Wanaka.
“It’s a multi-modal dragon boat rafting experience down New Zealand’s second longest river, the South Island’s longest river, the Clutha River.
“It goes raft, dragon boat, raft, dragon boat.
“Twenty people, split into two rafts, 10 and 10, they come together, teamwork and then you split and do a little bit of friendly competition.
“It starts in town and finishes at the ocean if you want to go the full hog for six days.
“But we do it from one day, two days, three days, and so forth, depending on how much time people have to take off.”
Clients come from the USA, the UK, Australia and Thailand to undertake a Social Nature Movement experience for three days or up to two weeks. Their largest group to date has been 500 people.
