Responsible Travel
Backroads has been taking responsible travel seriously since our first biking trips 30 years ago. Creating our vacations for travel primarily on two feet or two wheels has always been our number one way of minimizing negative impact on the environment and the communities around us. We don't stop there.
Backroads is taking 5 Main Steps to Reduce and Offset Our Carbon Footprint. We invite you to join us.
STEP 1
Operating 1,000+ biking and hiking trips each year. Just offering these kinds of trips allows us to take thousands of guests through the world responsibly and with minimal impact annually.
STEP 2
Running our trips carbon-neutral. Since we are committed to providing the best support for you on our trips, we've calculated our fuel usage and are purchasing in-kind “offsets” to neutralize that van support. Through our partnership with Native Energy, we will offset 897 tons of CO2 emissions in 2008 by contributing to a fund that helps build renewable energy projects in Pennsylvania and the Midwest.
STEP 3
Increasing our energy efficiency at our headquarters. We have just retrofitted 100 percent of our lighting fixtures at our Berkeley, CA, headquarters with compact fluorescent bulbs, which will reduce CO2 emissions by 14,000 pounds annually – year after year.
STEP 4
Inviting you to offset your own travel to and from Backroads trips. You can consider offsetting your own travel before and after your Backroads trips.
Check out how to offset your air or car travel now!
(Remember all of your van travel is already offset by Backroads.)
STEP 5
Distributing sustainable products. You'll find that all Backroads guest and leader t-shirts are made with 100% organic cotton, all of our water bottles are recyclable, we use Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified paper in the majority of our printed marketing materials, and we implement many other small product choices that make a difference.
In our home offices and warehouses globally, we encourage biking to work, give credits for carpooling and using public transportation, and offer 3 “flex days” annually to office employees to donate their (paid) time to doing community service. All leaders are trained annually in core environmental and cultural practices as part of our Responsible Travel efforts.
As members of the Adventure Collection, we support and believe in the five Strategic Principles of Responsible Travel. Since theAdventureCollection members accepted these principles in November 2003, we continue to integrate them into all aspects of Backroads.