Canada’s 60-Year-Old Butterfield & Robinson Earns B Corp Status
by Bruce Parkinson
Toronto-based Butterfield & Robinson (B&R) has spent 60 years building trips around people, place and the communities who welcome its travellers.
As of July this year, that commitment carries an official name: Butterfield & Robinson is now a Certified B Corporation, one of the highest independent standards for social and environmental responsibility in business globally.
B Corp status is earned through the B Impact Assessment, a rigorous, evidence-backed audit that measures a company’s entire social and environmental footprint across five areas: environment, governance, customers, community and workers. Every answer in the assessment must be supported by documentation, and the process included third-party interviews and legal requirements.
“This certification validates something we have believed for 60 years: how you travel matters. Slowing down, investing locally and treating people and places with care create richer journeys — and a stronger business,” said CEO Mike Scarola.
The company says the certification formalizes values that have shaped the business since it was founded.
Its own Slow Fund has supported community and conservation projects tied to its trips since 2001, well before “sustainability” entered the industry’s vocabulary. The fund has historically directed approximately 5% of annual profits to support local community and conservation projects.
That same instinct extends to how B&R operates today: partnering with more than 1,000 local experts and business owners worldwide, investing directly in the places its travellers visit, and measuring the carbon footprint of every trip it runs to offset what can’t yet be eliminated.
“It puts us firmly in a movement for positive change — a clear, accountable commitment to using business as a force for good,” said Michele Harvey, Sustainability Lead at Butterfield & Robinson, who co-leads the company’s sustainability work and the Slow Fund alongside a team of seven.
“B Corp isn’t a finish line, it’s a baseline,” she added.
B&R says it sees the certification as another step in its ongoing journey rather than an endpoint. Certified B Corporations are required to recertify every three years, a process that will continue to hold the company accountable to its employees, partners, travellers and communities as its sustainability work evolves.
Learn more about Butterfield & Robinson’s B Corp certification here.
