Sustainable TourismThe importance of being eco-friendly

Green Tourism Awards

There are thousands of businesses across British working to reduce their carbon footprint through the Green Tourism Business Scheme. Businesses are awarded Bronze, Silver and Gold for their efforts to be more sustainable. Cairngorm Lodges were first awarded a Gold Green Tourism Award in 2015 and  were delighted, following their grading visit in June 2017, to maintain their Gold level.

Why is being eco-friendly so important to Cairngorm Lodges?

Cairngorm Lodges is one of those places on earth where you arrive, take a deep breath and feel extremely lucky to be alive. It is without doubt a very special place where you cannot fail to be aware of the beauty of your surroundings. We encourage you to notice things while you are here – the season, the landscape, the wildlife, even the lichen growing on the trees. We believe our spectacular forest hideaway deserves to be looked after for future guests and future generations. We are only its temporary custodians so we wish to do our best to preserve it and ask that our guests assist us with this responsibility. 

Therefore our aim is to work in a sustainable way and minimise our environmental impact, but still provide luxury self catering accommodation for our guests.

We continue to self evaluate everything we do and are happy to take feedback from guests on any improvements they feel we could make to improve our carbon footprint. For your interest below are some of the things we have done to help the sustainability of our forest hideaway.

• Our lodges comply with the requirements of environmental legislation and approved codes of practise.
• Our lodges are insulated to the highest specifications.
• We seek to reduce the use of energy and be carbon neutral – all lodges are heated by a wood burning stove which uses wood from our own forests.
• We use eco friendly products (low energy light bulbs, recycled paper products and bin liners, environmentally friendly firelighters).
• We provide guests with certified fair trade organic bed linen thus demonstrating our support for ethical agricultural practise.
• We seek to reuse and recycle items such as bed linen and towels which become worn or damaged.
• We use and supply eco friendly cleaning products in our lodges thus enabling and encouraging our guests to try environmentally sensitive products.
• We provide a recycle bin for our guests and ask that they separate their rubbish and recycle appropriately thus reducing the impact on landfill.
• We encourage wildlife into the surrounding forest and feed those requiring a helping hand – the birds and red squirrels.
• We are working with the British Dragonfly Society to monitor damselflies on the estate.
• We are replanting areas of woodland felled in 2014 and will include mixed native broadleaves such as Alder, Silver birch and Sessile oak. Shrubs such as Holly, Rowan and Hazel will also be planted to provide long term food sources for local wildlife.
• From 2014 all glassware purchased in the lodges is recycled glass.
• We have minimised our travel carbon emissions by employing only local staff.
• We raise awareness, encourage participation and train employees in sustainable business practices.
• We are heavily involved in the local community and support a variety of local projects.
• We keep abreast of advances in environmental technology and are constantly looking at ways of reducing our energy consumption.