At the D.C. Green Festival I caught up with Bruce Poon Tip, a guy who doesn't strike you as a man with a $100 million a year company. Clear-eyed and personable, he acts more the part of the fresh entrepreneur still struggling to fund his "next best thing" startup. And yet, his company, G.A.P. Adventures, is Canada's largest adventure company with wind-powered offices in 27 countries around the world.

G.A.P. offers 1,000 different trips on all 7 continents (yes, Antarctica too). So far, it sounds like your average multi-national, volume tour company. And while the eco-tourism label is a popular way to build buzz these days, Poon Tip has worked hard to build G.A.P. into one of the world's most successful sustainable businesses. Working with Conservation International, his company developed its own ecotourism operator standards to turn its founding beliefs into concrete principles. As a result, G.A.P. Adventure trips focuses on not only reducing its negative impact, but also leaving destinations better than when the travelers reached them.

For example, tour sizes are small, with groups no larger than 16 people and averaging 10. G.A.P. supports the local economy whenever possible by using public transportation, accommodating travelers in locally-owned hotels, and hiring residents as tour guides.

However, G.A.P.'s commitment to sustainability goes beyond throwing an economic bone to the local businesses. The company also supports community projects such as an eco-paper operation and children's school in Ecuador and a project to preserve traditional textile techniques and sell the resulting products at fair trade prices in Cuzco, Peru.

When asked why he started G.A.P., Poon Tip responded that, in 1990, the available options for travel were big tour companies, do-it-yourself backpacking trips, and not much in the middle. "I wanted to fill that gap," he said. Since then, he has won two Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year awards and National Geographic has named a different G.A.P. tour one of its "25 Best New Adventure Trips of the Year" for the past 5 years. And in the process, he's helping to close the gap between the world we live in and the world we'd like to live in.

So what's next? "We're going to plant a million trees," he said, "in Honduras, Panama, India, Ethiopia, and Senegal."Going forward they will also plant a tree for each of its travelers. The gap just got a bit narrower.