Our Climate Change Commitment

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.

1. Develop a 'Climate Emergency Plan'
2. Share our commitment to progress publicly 
3. Cut our carbon emissions in line with IPCC advice 
4. Work with others in the travel industry
5. 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 most of 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.
• Our old oil boiler emitted an estimated 3800 kilograms of CO2 and electricity 61 kilograms. Following the installation of heat pumps and thermodynamic water heaters we estimate (our target) that our total energy emissions will be 200 kilograms of CO2, a reduction of 3661 kilograms of CO2. That is an exciting prospect!
• When we started monitoring our waste in March 2023 we had 52% general, 24% recycling and 24% garden waste. That's been coming down over the year but the challenging target we have set ourselves for this year is that overall, our waste will be 25% general, 75% recycling and 0% garden waste.
• We started monitoring our water consumption from July 2020 when the average usage was 213 litres for ourselves and our guests. For the year ending June 2023 we had reduced that to 161 litres per person. Our target is to reduce that further to 142 litres per person by the end of 2025. This represents an average per person water reduction of one third. 

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 need your help - Your Responsible Visitor Charter

As you can see minimising our environmental impact is important to us and 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. As a visitor to Saint Antonin Noble Val you can help us to conserve our natural assets and become a more sustainable destination. Here’s how:

Give the car a rest.

We understand that there is no public transport to reach us but once you are here why not enjoy everything the village has to offer, local artisan shops, great cafes and markets. If you’re feeling more adventurous, there are many walks around the village, cycle routes, canoeing, rock climbing, paintballing and an outdoor assault course.

Reduce, reuse, recycle

Please help us during your visit by trying to avoid overly packaged goods and say no to that extra carrier bag or single-use plastic and glass. We can provide you filtered water every day. Leave rubbish such as batteries, glass bottles, cans and newspapers next to the bin in your room, for us to remove and recycle when cleaning your room.

Respect nature

Help us to look after our landscape and wildlife by not littering, guarding against fire by not smoking and using footpaths and cycleways responsibly.  If you take a picnic with you, please bag your rubbish and bring it back with you.

Shop local

Use local products if you can, they give you a flavour of the area and help support local communities. We are fortunate to have some fantastic producers of food, drink and arts and crafts. Ask us about local markets or local and regional produce.

Be water wise

Water conservation is always crucial and there is always water use restrictions in the summer. Whilst all our showers and taps are low flow, please help us to conserve water by adopting these practises whilst staying with us: take short showers; turn off taps whilst brushing teeth and make use of the dual flow toilets.

Conserve energy

Switch off lights when you leave your room. Close your window when you have your radiator on. Only boil the amount of water you need when making hot drinks.

Green tourism

This is the go-to standard for sustainability, look out for the symbol and please support those businesses that are working to reduce their carbon footprint.