Butterfield & Robinson Earns B Corp Certification After 60 Years of Slow Travel
The certification recognizes the active travel company’s longstanding focus on sustainability, local partnerships, and responsible tourism.
Photo: Urban Vintage / Unsplash
Butterfield & Robinson has earned B Corp certification, providing the luxury active travel company with independent validation of sustainability practices it says have been part of its business for decades.
The Toronto-based company officially became a Certified B Corporation on July 6, following an assessment by global nonprofit B Lab. Butterfield & Robinson received a B Impact Assessment score of 85.1, above the minimum qualifying score of 80. The certification evaluates companies across five areas—environment, governance, customers, community, and workers—and requires businesses to document their practices and undergo third-party review. Certified companies must recertify every three years.
“This certification validates something we have believed for 60 years: how you travel matters,” said Mike Scarola, CEO of Butterfield & Robinson. “Slowing down, investing locally and treating people and places with care create richer journeys—and a stronger business.”
For Butterfield & Robinson, which has built its brand around biking, walking, and other forms of slower-paced travel, the certification formalizes several existing initiatives. The company works with more than 1,000 local suppliers and has operated its Slow Fund for more than 20 years, supporting community and conservation projects connected to destinations where it operates.
B&R has also measured its company-wide environmental impact since 2023 with the help of an outside consultant. That work extends to individual itineraries, with the company calculating estimated emissions associated with hotel stays, transfers and meals and using those figures to determine the carbon footprint of each trip. The company says it offsets emissions that cannot currently be eliminated.
Its Toronto headquarters at T3 Bayside also holds LEED Gold Core and Shell and WiredScore Platinum certifications and was constructed using 100 percent FSC-certified mass timber. B&R is additionally a member of The Long Run, an international network focused on sustainable tourism.
For travelers, the B Corp designation offers a recognizable third-party benchmark at a time when sustainability claims within the travel industry can vary widely in scope and accountability.
“B Corp isn’t a finish line, it’s a baseline,” said Michele Harvey, Butterfield & Robinson’s sustainability lead, who co-leads the company’s sustainability efforts and Slow Fund. The company will now be required to maintain its standards and undergo B Corp recertification every three years.
