In May 2020, La Résidence signed up to
Tourism Declares, an initiative that supports tourism businesses, organizations and individuals in declaring a climate emergency and taking purposeful action to reduce their carbon emissions as
per the advice from The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to cut global carbon emissions to 55% below 2017 levels by 2030.
In signing the Climate Emergency
Declaration, we made these five commitments.
-
Develop a 'Climate Emergency
Plan'
-
Share our commitment to progress
publicly
-
Cut our carbon emissions in line
with IPCC advice
-
Work with others in the travel
industry
-
Advocate for change throughout the
travel industry
Our achievements so far
We understand that tourism makes a
large contribution to carbon emissions globally and while changing the way we run our bed and breakfast is not going to halt global temperature rises on its own, we feel a moral obligation to
contribute.
We are also aware that the changes we
make need to be in line with what our guests expect of an excellent bed and breakfast and listening to their aspirations and desires for a great holiday continues to be very important to
us.
We feel that we have made a good start
on our quest to become a more environmentally sustainable bed and breakfast and by the end of 2023 made the following changes to our business.
-
Switched to a renewable electricity
tariff
-
Replaced all our halogen lightbulbs
with LED ones.
-
Replaced our paper guest folders
with an online guestbook.
-
Confirmed that our website host is
using 100% renewable energy.
-
Replaced single use toiletries with
vegan refillable products certified by Leaping Bunny as cruelty free.
-
Redesigned guest breakfasts so that
they are meat free and locally sourced as much as possible, reducing car journeys and supporting local food producers.
-
Replaced single use plastic water
bottles with filtered water in all guest rooms.
-
Replaced plastic milk and coffee
sachets in guest rooms with ground coffee, cafetieres and flasks of fresh milk.
-
Installed dual flush toilets to
reduce water consumption.
-
Built a worm farm to compost raw
food waste and stopped artificial fertiliser use on the garden.
-
Replaced single use plastic lunch
boxes and cutlery with reusable or compostable products.
-
Switched to environmentally
friendly, cruelty free cleaning products.
- With the help of a grant from the French government, replaced our oil boiler and emersion heaters with air to water heat pumps and thermodynamic water heaters.
- Reduced the temperature that we wash guest bedding to 40 degrees to reduce energy consumption.
- Recorded water and energy use as well as recyclable and non-recyclable waste to make sure that our changes have been successful as well as guide further changes.
We have a plan for the next 18 months
and some changes will be easier to achieve than others. These are shown in the list below.
-
Air dry bedding rather than use
tumble dryers to reduce energy consumption (They will still be ironed at a high temperature for hygiene reasons).
-
Continue to replace guest
showers with water saving shower heads.
-
Continue to replace garden plants
for more drought tolerant ones to reduce water usage. This includes a new herb and vegetable patch.
-
Continue to replace electrical
equipment with high energy efficient models.
-
Continue to locally source as much
food and drink as possible, buying in bulk to reduce waste packaging and car journeys.
-
Advocate for and educate our guests
on our climate action plans as well as seek feedback and ideas for new initiatives.
-
Enhance our guestbook to include
information about local flora and fauna.
No doubt there will be more changes
than shown in the list above and we hope that our guests will inspire us with their own sustainable initiatives. We will be encouraging everyone to tell us what they think about our plans and hope to incorporate as many new ideas as we
can.
We also hope that we can inspire others
to make changes to the way they live, so that collectively we all contribute reducing our greenhouse gas emissions.
Interested in knowing more?
In educating ourselves we have found
the issues around environmentally sustainability daunting but if you would like to imagine what our future could look like, please listen to former Australian Green Senator, Scott Ludlum's
thought-provoking insights.
Economy or ecology? Why not
both? | Scott Ludlam | TEDxPerth - YouTube