Going for Green!

As farmers we are acutely aware of the environment and all things eco but we’d never really thought of ourselves as particularly ‘green’. However all this changed when we were asked to write our environment and sustainability policy and we started to take a proper look at everything eco we did – and were amazed!

Of course we’d made sure that we have renewable energies powering our luxury lodges with a mix of air source heat pumps and solar panels that supply heating and electricity, to the sustainable logs we provide for the log burning fires. We provide recycling facilities, collect rainwater, provide environmentally-conscious cleaning products and use local suppliers – but doesn’t everyone? Our feedback and research tells us, apparently not!

I suspect as farmers we’re always looking to encourage biodiversity and support the natural environment because it’s part of the way we live, it always has been, but so many people were surprised to hear that since we’d started work on the lodges in 2009 we’ve planted 600 metres of hedgerows, as well as 250 trees. Guests have been happy to hear that we designed the large pond that sits outside the lodges to make sure that we encouraged all of nature’s wonderful creatures and in support of their habitats and that we consider how to heal the land on which we work.

To start with we thought that writing down our environment and sustainability policy was just a bit of admin that we didn’t really have time for, but part way through listing all the things we did, we felt proud that we were doing so much, when many others appear to struggle to do even the simplest of positive ‘green’ tasks.

So thanks to everyone for their warm support of our new policy. If you’ve not read it yet, you can find it on our website at http://www.oaklandscountrylodges.co.uk/sustainability-environmental-policy.pdf

If you’ve got any ideas about anything more we can do, we’d be delighted to hear from you.