Headaches, hurdles and hope: Climate action behind-the-scenes

Carbon tracking

We need to know where our emissions are coming from so we can understand how to reduce them. Much of the first year of our Climate Action Plan has been about establishing accurate environmental measurement and accounting systems. This process has been absolutely painstaking at times, but totally essential and has set us in good stead for creating robust sustainability processes now and into the future.

We identified our key carbon sources – transport, accommodation, waste and food provisions – and estimated emissions (using tools such as the ADEME carbon coefficient tool). These baseline figures gave us a starting point for our strategy.

By the 31st May 2022, we had completed a full year of environmental accounts (which are included in our end of year climate report). We now know where to focus our efforts for the year ahead.

We intend to get even more granular with this process and introduce a monthly environmental accounting system. This means when each invoice hits our books, we account for it both financially and environmentally at the same time so that we have an up-to-date picture of our progress at any point in time.

Our focus is to methodically strive for further CO2 reduction within our company and supply chain, however where we haven’t been able to reduce our emissions, we are investing in carbon reduction projects with French non profit organisation Foundation GoodPlanet. These environmental and social field projects include the construction and monitoring of biodigesters, solar cookers and improved stoves in Asia, Africa and Latin America.

Measuring waste

Getting precise with our waste output has been another major learning curve. We began weighing our waste to provide accurate calculations of how much waste our business produces, broken down by general waste, recyclable waste (tin, plastics and cardboard) and glass waste.

Originally, we measured waste across the business everyday. Whilst our team are on board with our environmental efforts, it soon became apparent that the process of separating and weighing waste was too time consuming to be completed every time our chalet hosts took rubbish to the bins.

Instead, we created a data sample across two weeks in March 2022, where every single piece of waste from our catered chalets (and central kitchen) was measured. This allowed us to work out the average waste per guest per night. We then calculated the total number of guest nights for the winter season and this allowed us to accurately calculate the total waste for the winter for our catered chalets.

The waste generated by our self catered chalets is a tiny fraction of our catered chalets and our approach here has been very similar except that we measure waste based on the number of bookings rather that the number of guest nights.

We have partnered with Nu Cycle to invest with them in a series of projects that will offset our waste so that we will be waste neutral later this year. In the year ahead we will continue to measure waste and to find ways to reduce dirty waste and plastic that can’t be recycled.

Hot tubs

Cut down the eco footprint of our hot tubs. There is no escaping that the heating and cleaning involved in maintaining year-round hot tubs in our chalets is energy and water intensive.  We’ve identified several ways to reduce this:

•      Cut down on the overall use of hot tubs through the introduction of an ‘opt out’ option for guests booking winter holidays, and an ‘opt in’ option for guests booking summer holidays. Reward guests who choose eco-friendly options with discounts or benefits.

•      Improve information in chalets to help guests reduce heat loss, keep tub water clean and avoid mid week water changes.

•      Introduce a fee for mid week water changes to encourage guests to look after the water, and specifically shower and remove sunscreen before entering the hot tub.

•      Improve drainage system to ensure dirty water is responsibly disposed off. In particular one of our chalets needs the drains improved so no dirty water escapes into the environment.

•      Investigate and install eco-friendly features to hot tubs, such as better hot tub lids, energy efficient pumps and filters, low energy LED lights, energy measurement devices.