We have dedicated 2021 to creating a more sustainable resort our guests to enjoy for years to come. In fact, we have pledged that sustainability will be at the heart of everything that we do. We are incredibly privileged to be in this beautiful location and recognize that we need to reduce our impact on it. So, this year we have set ambitious goals to reduce our waste, energy, and water use. We are also making great progress in our conservation programme while working to ensure that our impact on both local and global environments and communities are as positive as possible. 

Today is Global Recycling Day, and what better day to provide a few more details on our sustainability goals for 2021.

• Increase our recycling by at least 25%
• Decrease our energy use by at least 10%

Recycling 

Firstly, we are introducing mixed recycling across the resort and in all departments, this means everyone on the resort can continue to recycle the same items that they do at home. We want to be recycling the weight of 4 cows every week – that is almost 2 tonnes.  

Holiday guests and owners are given a mixed recycling bag to use to separate their recycling and to have an easy way of carrying it to our newly designed recycling areas. Guests in our hiring accommodation with also find a crate that in a previous incarnation had mushrooms delivered in it to our kitchens. This crate is for collecting up and carrying glass bottles to the recycling areas. 

We have some exciting ideas and activities planned for our family fun times, looking at activities using sustainable materials and messages while incorporating a bit of learning at the same time. 

Within our food and drink department we are firstly looking at how we can reduce the amount of waste that we produce – from monitoring food waste to working with our suppliers on ensuring packaging is used as efficiently as possible. Every location will also have mixed recycling bins available throughout both the back of house areas and the guest areas and we will be ensuring that any waste on plates is recycled as much as possible. 

Energy 

Using energy produces carbon and as everyone knows, we really need to stop carbon being released at the rate it currently is to protect the planet. 

We already have 900 solar panels on our leisure centre roof and biomass burners to keep the pool the perfect temperature. We also have several Electric Vehicle charging points around the site which we will be increasing over the coming years. 

To assist us in using electricity more efficiently within our departments, all electrical items have stickers with a traffic light system to ensure things that need to be switched off or down are (and things that cannot be turned off are kept on)! 

We will also be closely monitoring overall energy use in each department using some great analytics over the coming months to ensure that we are not missing any areas where we could save more energy. Finally, we are always on the lookout for ever evolving new technology to help keep energy use down without impacting on the guest experience. 

Sustainability is not just about recycling and energy. 

We are reducing the amount of paper we use by moving to a digital platform called Trail, this alone will save over 10,000 pieces of paper a year. We are also looking at changing our cleaning chemical range to be more environmentally friendly and reviewing our single use products and materials. 

The local community is particularly important to us, so we are also increasing the number of local suppliers from the South West that we use. Last but by no means least we have a fantastic conservation programme based at the Secret Wood which concentrates on the reintroduction of native animals plus a release site for the RSPCA, RSPB, and local animal charity Secret World. 

We want to develop our teams, so we have also provided training in a range of sustainability topics to help both at work and importantly in their own homes. We are also building a team of sustainability co-ordinators who will be developed and supported to help lead the way in attaining our goals and come up with new sustainability ideas for their department.