Live large, tread lightly
We’ve been biking and walking and trying to lighten our footprint since 1966. In an era rife with corporate “greenwashing”, it would be all-too-easy to just jump on the environmental bandwagon: we could simply use Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) paper, slap on a sticker and say we’re green. But our commitment to provide truly sustainable travel goes much deeper.

Best Practices
As a global travel company, it’s hard for us to avoid motorized transport. But we strive to visit the world as responsibly as possible. We continue to reduce our environmental footprint and we purchase carbon credits to offset what we cannot reduce on each trip and within our offices. It’s not just fuel consumption that concerns us: We have developed a sustainable tourism policy to help us guide our choices. We do our best to work with ecologically responsible partners; our Toronto office runs on wind and low-impact hydro; and we advocate for environmental and social responsibility.

And we walk the walk as individuals: George Butterfield has devoted countless hours to the World Wildlife Fund, Martha Butterfield produced an award-winning documentary linking chemical pollution to breast cancer, and B&R’s staff are steadfast supporters of the local food movement and enthusiastic environmentalists.

• We’ve partnered up with some of the hardest-hitting environmental organizations out there, all in an effort to join forces and see what kind of difference we can make.
• Being a travel company, it’s pretty hard to avoid flying, but we’re offsetting all of our air travel—and offering our travellers an opportunity to do the same.

Stay connected
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• If there’s an ecological hotspot on your must-see radar, find out how we can design a custom trip to take you there.

Our world is truly amazing: the Earth’s geographical and cultural heritage is rich, precious and beautiful. But this is a time of unprecedented change: the climate is in flux, natural habitats are disappearing, and traditional ways of life are being abandoned in the face of massive socio-economic pressures.

As passionate travellers, we at B&R want to do our part to protect the world’s cultural heritage and promote the health of vibrant living cultures. The B&R Fund was created to celebrate and support the unique cultures we explore on our trips.

Global in scope, local in impact, the Fund will support innovative projects spearheaded by exceptional individuals. The projects we select will strongly reflect the region that inspired them and will especially give something back to their communities in how they genuinely express the local terroir.

Financial support is merely the point of departure. The relationship between B&R and the grant recipient will vary depending on the project, and efforts to collaborate will include such activities as contributing to the trip planning process and participating in fundraising.

The meaning of terroir and its importance to us
Loosely translated as “a sense of a place,” terroir is a French winemaking term used to refer to the special characteristics imparted upon a wine by the local geography. The concept of terroir means that wines from a given terroir are unique and incapable of being reproduced outside that area.

As Butterfield & Robinson was born in the heart of France’s winemaking country, it’s not an exaggeration when we say each one of our trips is really about celebrating the terroir of the unique places we visit.

For more information on the B&R Fund, including how to apply, please contact us at fund@butterfield.com.

B&R focuses its funding in the following areas:

• Artists in Motion Grants
  Artists have a profound influence on the way cultures see themselves. These grants will provide the financial support necessary for an artist to travel and/or reside in a place that is geographically and/or culturally inspiring so that they can create a body of work related to that place.
• Regional Artisan Grants
  These are broader grants aimed at local, community-based cultural projects led by individuals who are breathing life into the regional terroir. While we greatly admire those who engage in traditional arts and crafts, we are inspired by those who work to make local traditions relevant in a modern context.
• Cultural Studies Grants
  From time-to-time we come upon ambitious, but under-funded, cultural projects led by visionary individuals or groups. In supporting these unique projects we can make a real difference. It is worth emphasizing that we will not undertake preservation and conservation projects for their own sake—instead we are interested to see how tradition can speak to both the past and the future of a region.
• Crisis Grants
  We will provide crisis funding in areas where we currently travel or intend to travel. We will reserve approximately $15,000 CAD for this purpose. We will not accept formal applications for this funding but will offer relief on an ad hoc basis.