Pura Aventura claims to have become the first specialist operator in the UK to achieve B Corp certification recognising its environmental and social performance.
The Brighton-based Latin America, Spain, Portugal and Antarctica responsible travel company joins a growing global movement of organisations using business as a force for good, including Intrepid Travel.
B Corporation now has almost 4,000 members, including the likes of Patagonia, The Body Shop and Danone, with combined revenues of $80 billion.
It is the only certification that measures the entirety of a company’s social and environmental performance, creating a public and legally binding commitment to balance profit with people and the planet.
In the B Corp certification qualifying process Pura Aventura was awarded a score of 81.2 against a peer group average of 50.2.
To keep the certification, Pura must re-certify every three years and achieve sufficient scores across five key areas of business activity: governance, workers, environment, community and customers.
The company balances a carbon mile for every kilometre travelled by a client from their front door and back again. This means it has been balancing 160% of carbon from all travel, irrespective of whether it books international flights for clients or not, since July 2019.
Pura Aventura has committed 1% of its revenue to the planet to fund a rural community development project in Nicaragua which uses carbon credits as a means of funding.
Managing director Thomas Power said: “We are incredibly proud to be successfully certified as a B Corp. 2020 was a tough year for many in many ways, but we committed to achieve this key ambition because it sets a vital and much-needed benchmark for the future of travel.
“B Corp affirms our goal to encourage all to travel positive – to deliver exceptional trips that are as friendly to the planet as we can make them, and that are independently certified as being so.
“We are proud to join Intrepid Travel in achieving the exacting standards required by B Corp. We look forward to others in the industry joining us in creating a community of tour operators that offer genuinely verifiable responsible travel worldwide.”