Our Values & Commitments
Seven Decades of
Family Ownership
In an era where educational summer programs are increasingly owned by venture capital firms, we are proud to be in our third generation of family leadership, now as a female-led organization. Over the course of seven decades, we feel the importance of our core mission—to change students’ lives—has grown significantly. When our grandparents led that first group of 18 high school students by ship to Europe, in a world still reeling from the aftershock of World War II, they sought to usher them out of their comfort zones and teach them to embrace what is new and different. They strived to develop thoughtful and well-rounded young leaders through experiential, intellectual, emotional, and cultural engagement—a mission that remains just as relevant today.
Commitment to Sustainability
Carbon Offsets for Air Travel
Putney Student Travel invests in a carbon offset program to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions from all student and leader group flights. We work directly with Sustainable Travel International to create an annual custom carbon offset portfolio.
This year’s offset contributions support three projects in Cambodia, Turkey, and The USA. These projects include a wind farm that generates jobs and clean energy; forest and elephant conservation in a biodiverse area; and a carbon sequestration and agriculture project to strengthen soil health and improve harvests for more robust crop production. You can read more about each project below.
Our Commitment to
Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion
We acknowledge that our organization and the practice of travel, more broadly, has historically benefited and continues to benefit from privilege as it relates to power, race, class, citizenship, sexual orientation, and mobility. We are committed to making genuine efforts to foster an environment that embraces the richness of human experience both within our organization and on our global travels. Our journey toward diversity, equity, and inclusion is active, ongoing, and evolving. We recognize that there are barriers we haven’t yet overcome, and we’re dedicated to addressing them by committing to the following actions:
- Designing new opportunities and enhancing existing programming to better incorporate diverse perspectives, particularly through the relationships we cultivate with local people, businesses, and underrepresented identities wherever possible.
- Increasing our recruitment efforts at geographically, racially, and socioeconomically diverse schools.
- Increasing scholarship funding and expanding collaborations with youth development organizations to increase access to our programs.
- Better supporting staff and students of all identities through training and resource development for leaders and full-time employees.