Using Tourism as a Force For Good: Becoming B CorpTM Certified
We are becoming stronger! As a conscious business, we strive to maintain an unfailing commitment to benefit everyone involved. In our path toward embodying our ideals, we’ve chosen to establish thoughtful partnerships, seeking to reshape business to prioritize people and the planet. Thinking systemically and collaboratively is how we balance profit with purpose.
This is the interdependence that builds resilient business. As we expand our mission, we leverage tourism to elevate communities and the destinations they call home. Getting certified as a B Corporation was a natural next step in demonstrating our commitment to using tourism as a force for good. When you book one of our tours, you’re helping us make the world a better place.
What Is a B Corp?
Rebecca Adventure Travel team and kids at Antonio de Ulloa school.
This is a new type of corporation that is purpose-driven. B Corps strive to go beyond profit, making business purposeful. They build trust with consumers, communities, and suppliers. They commit to being accountable to all stakeholders, not just shareholders. This is a holistic approach where standards continue to be met over time.
The B System brings about change by harnessing the market’s power to positively impact people and the environment. B LabTM mobilizes the B Corp network towards collective action to address global challenges. They lead the transformation of the global economic system with social and environmental impact standards measured by the B Impact AssessmentTM.
The B Impact Assessment
B Lab measures a business’s accountability by examining how it upholds stewardship. The B Impact Assessment evaluates how verified performance meets rigorous high standards regarding governance, responsibility, and transparency. Factors range from employee benefits and charitable giving to supply chain practices and input materials.
An Impact Business Model is purposefully structured to generate a particular positive effect for a stakeholder group. This model reduces poverty through ethical supply chain practices, such as fair trade procurement, distribution through small businesses and cooperatives, local economic development initiatives, and formal pledges to charity.
The impact of B Corps is threefold: social, environmental, and economic. Take a look at ours:
Social Impact
We support education in Ecuador by sponsoring a rural school. We raise funds for supplies and the remodeling of facilities through crowdfunding and donations.
Economic Impact
We focus our trips around locals, ensuring funds stay within their communities.
Environmental Impact
We source locally and keep the scale small to minimize pollution in operations. This includes vehicles, accommodations, restaurants, and cruise ships.
B Impact Pillars
The Impact B Assessment revolves around five main pillars to evaluate a business’s performance.
- Governance: Capacity to safeguard its mission and include stakeholders in its decisions. Measured by: Mission & Engagement; Ethics & Transparency.
- Workers: Contributions to employees’ Financial Security, Health & Safety, Wellness, Career Development, and Engagement & Satisfaction.
- Community: Engagement with the communities where it does business, hires, and buys from. Measured by: Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, Economic Impact, Civic Engagement & Giving, and Supply Chain Management.
- Environment: Overall environmental management practices; with Air & Climate, Water, and Land & Life.
- Customer Stewardship: The quality of a business’s Products & Services, Ethical Marketing, Data Privacy & Security, and Feedback Channels.
What Makes Us a Certified B CorporationTM
Rebecca Adventure Travel propels purposeful tourism in Ecuador towards the future by making it sustainable. On our mission to serve our planet and its people, we harness the power of travel to benefit society and enrich lives. Through sustainable tourism, we contribute to the conservation of delicate ecosystems, such as the Galapagos.
Our supply chain enables poverty alleviation through direct collaboration with locals. By championing the underserved, we revitalize vulnerable groups through the generation of work, empowerment of women, restoration of destinations, and uplifting of communities.
Our resolve to leave a positive impact is now on a new level because becoming B Corp certified means committing to continuous improvement. This is how we are building a brighter future.
As we move into this new chapter of our story, we intend to continuously assess our business’s practices to match the B Corp standards. Loyal to the B Corporation philosophy, our goal is to inspire a global interdependent economy.
We hope growing our impact will advance quality of life and environmental conservation in all the destinations we offer. We also hope to motivate Ecuador’s tourism industry to uplift each other, because we move forward together.
Let’s benefit the world one trip at a time. Be brave, be bold. Be the benefit.
Frequently Asked Questions
