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| Steves’ tour company, Rick Steves’ Europe, is proud to announce its Climate Smart Commitment: an innovative, forward- thinking, and pragmatic program to offset the carbon emitted by its tour members. Starting in spring 2019, Steves’ company will donate $1 million annually to fund climate-smart agriculture, agroforestry, and conservation projects in underdeveloped countries. A portion of this money will also support advocacy organizations in the US whose work is crucial to sustaining climate-smart efforts around the world. Typically, private businesses that adopt an environmentally friendly policy purchase “carbon offset credits.” These credits are managed by brokers to help fund clean energy projects, such as solar and wind technologies, often based in North America and Europe. Rejecting this conventional approach and the administrative fees attached, Rick Steves’ Europe has chosen to work with organizations that directly address the problem in developing countries—emphasizing projects that empower women to take leadership roles, protect their environment, and strengthen their communities. Based on figures from scientists and development experts, it takes roughly $30 of careful investment in environmental initiatives in the developing world to mitigate the carbon emissions created by a single traveler on a Rick Steves tour. Each year, Rick Steves’ Europe takes about 30,000 travelers on its tours. Doing the math and then rounding it up, Steves estimates that $1 million annually is what his company “owes” to the environment. Drawn from the tour company’s profits—not passed along to the customer via higher prices—Steves’ investment in the environment is strongly linked to the company’s core value of demonstrating good global citizenship. “We don’t see this program as particularly heroic,” says Steves. “It’s simply ethical. We believe every business should bear the cost to the environment of their activities. That’s just honest accounting. We hope this program will inspire everyone who buys or sells tours to practice the same environmental ethic. This way, long after we are gone, our children will be able to enjoy the same happy travels we have.” For 2019, Rick Steves’ Europe has announced the first three recipients of the grant funding:
|  Rick Steves is the author of Travel as a Political Act (Avalon Travel, February 2018), as well as 50 guidebooks on European travel. He took his first trip to Europe at age 14, visiting piano factories with his father, a piano importer; at 18, he began traveling on his own, funding his trips by teaching piano lessons. In addition to running his successful tour program, he hosts a popular travel series on public television, Rick Steves’ Europe, and a weekly national public radio show, Travel with Rick Steves. To learn more, visit www.RickSteves.com/climate. Company
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