It is as I’m crossing Delhi, squeezed in the back of a Jeep with unwanted sweaters, socks and hastily bought saris, that I realise I’m in the hands of an unusual travel company. Only hours earlier, braced for culture shock, I stepped off the aircraft. Now I’m delivering cast-offs that have been donated by travellers who have just finished the Rajasthan tour that I’m about to begin.

The clothes are going to Goonj, a community project in south Delhi, which distributes second-hand clothing and household items to needy areas of India. It sends out 40,000 items every month. This is one of several projects that Intrepid, a Melbourne-based travel company, and joint overall winner of this year’s First Choice Responsible Tourism Awards, supports. (It shares the award with Ol Malo in Kenya) The company is committed to minimising environmental, social and cultural impacts on the places it visits, and it also contributes financially to the communities in which its travellers stay.

As well as transporting clothes to Goonj every ten days, it donates money from the Intrepid Fund, set up in 2002, after noticing how many people wished to give something back at the end of a tour. The fund has given £325,000 to charitable programmes in the past two years.

My Jeep pulls up outside a cluster of stone buildings. Each one is home to a mound of clothing. Women in dazzling saris sit cross-legged dividing the material according to quality and style.

Anshu Guptu launched the project after his experiences as a volunteer in the wake of the Uttarkashi earthquake, in northern India, in 1991. “People without adequate clothing were the first to die,” he says. “I wondered why we wait for a disaster to strike before we donate materials.”

In the store rooms, nothing is scrapped. Ripped fabric is transformed into school bags, classroom mats and rag carpets that are sold to raise funds.

That evening, back at the hotel, I meet my tour leader, Badam Singh Yadav. He left his hometown of Orchha in central India, where he worked as a tour guide, to join Intrepid’s team. He dreams of returning to set up a hotel founded on the principles of responsible travel.

Badam explains the company’s approach to working with local charities: “We support a project for a time, helping it on its way to self-sufficiency, and then we move on to help another one,” he says. “Another priority is accounting for the money made to check it is not going into management pockets, a common problem in India.” Rotating financial support is a key part of Intrepid’s responsible travel policy. It does the same thing with the locally owned restaurants and businesses that it recommends.

There are 11 other travellers in our group, a lively mix of Brits, Aussies and Americans, ranging in age from 26 to 60. We’re on the roof of our Delhi hotel for our first tour group meeting. There is serious stuff to consider. Intrepid has specific guidelines on how to travel responsibly. Of particular concern in Rajasthan is water conservation. It is the driest region in the country. Locals are renowned for making water last, often bathing, washing clothes and the house with the same bucket of water. Tourists are not. Modern hotels favour Western-style bathrooms, taking little notice of depleted resources. Fortunately, we’re the smug ones, staying in smaller places, where a bucket and measuring jug replace the spa.

To discourage begging, we are asked not to give money, sweets or pens to street children. Instead we’re given a donations envelope to support Intrepid’s partner projects. One of them has made us each a cloth shopping bag emblazoned with the words “Say No To Plastic” in English and Hindi. These eco-touches please me enormously. I spend the week rejecting plastic and flashing my cloth bag at unsuspecting shopkeepers, many of whom chuckle and say: “Ah, yes, very good for planet.”

The following day, we whiz around Agra in cars that run off electric batteries. Weaving between honking, belching vehicles, these little chaps are quiet as mice and admired by all. Especially as it is only emission-free vehicles — that’s us and bicycles — allowed within 400 metres of the Taj Mahal to protect it from pollution. While our vehicles are not exactly spacious, we soon learn that India is no place to be precious about travelling space. Mopeds zoom past with whole families piled on board, plus the week’s shopping.

It is this promise of adventure that tempted most of the group to try Intrepid, rather than any “worthy” aspect of the company. But no one has anything bad to say about the responsible travel policy. “I don’t feel any of it is being pushed down my throat,” says Janice Edwards, who is here with her husband. Both of them are in their fifties. “Visiting somewhere like this, you can’t pretend not to notice the problems around you. It’s better to face them head on.”

Unlike backpackers, we have a clued-up local leader to smooth over the bumps. Badam is also there to keep us in check. A discreet motion to a blouse that needs buttoning up before visiting a Muslim shrine or a word in our ear about not risking the breakfast offered on the train does the job nicely. Some of it is in the name of responsible travel; the rest is just sound advice.

In case this is all starting to sound more like a school trip than a holiday, it’s worth mentioning that we eat fantastically well at the restaurants that Badam recommends. We harass him mercilessly for English translations of dishes and spiciness ratings. And what we lose in hotel luxuries, we gain in opportunities to talk to local people.

Instead of peering out from a coach, we’re out in the thick of it, traipsing around markets, dodging camel-drawn carts and piles of cow dung. A few days into the trip, the group descends on a rural fort for the night. The lady of the manor, Tarkeshwari Kannar, says that she has an easy time when Intrepid groups come to stay: “They are well briefed about how to behave.”

On the final day we visit Ladli, an NGO in Jaipur that looks after girls found on the street. It sends them to school in the morning and teaches them jewellery-making in the afternoon. Prabhakar Goswami, the director, says: “I thought tourists only came to see forts and temples in India, but Intrepid groups come here, too.” How does that help? “Some people sponsor a child, others just buy the jewellery; it all helps to spread publicity.”

At times, being there feels voyeuristic, a shot of poverty tourism. But buying their handicrafts is a real way of helping. No one holds back on the cushion covers and cards for sale. And we don’t have to worry about overfilling our backpacks. Any clothes that won’t fit in at the end of the trip will find their way to a store room in Delhi where a second life awaits them. This adds to a growing sense that, on an Intrepid trip, you do not have a one-dimensional relationship with India.

www.responsibletourismawards.info.

Need to know

Anna Shepard travelled with Intrepid (0800 9176456) on a Classic Rajasthan tour. Fifteen days, taking in Delhi, Agra and the Taj Mahal, Ramthambhore National Park, a camel safari in Pushkar, birdwatching in Keoladeo Sanctuary, and Jaipur, cost from £425, plus a local payment of about £117. Flights are not included, but can be arranged.

Times recommends

• Oasis of the Seas: the Times review
• The 20 best new year party places to stay
• Green Spaces 2009: are you the winning writer?