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 

2023 Climate Emergency Plan

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 2022 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.
• Commissioned an emissions audit for La Residence. We received a C rating.

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.

• Reduce the temperature that we wash guest bedding to 30 degrees to reduce energy consumption.
• Air dry bedding rather than use tumble dryers to reduce energy consumption (They will still be ironed at a high temperature for hygiene reasons).
• Gradually replace guest showers with water saving shower heads.
• Replace garden plants for more drought tolerant ones to reduce water usage.
• As we replace electrical equipment, choose high energy efficient models.
• Record 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.
• 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.
• Implement as many of the recommendations in the energy audit as possible. These primarily concern insulation and heating systems.

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.

Despite our enthusiasm to move quickly there will be limits on what we can achieve, our very old house means that retrofitting heating systems and insulation is going to be difficult and expensive. Similarly, precise measurement of the emission changes we make is complex so we will do our best with the resources we have and continue to educate ourselves along the way. This doesn't mean we are going to be complacent, but it will require careful planning and persistence!

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