OUR SUSTAINABILITY POLICY

We are committed to an ongoing and evolving programme of measures to make The Hotel & Extreme Academy as sustainable as possible. Our approach is based on the ‘triple bottom line’ that takes environmental, social and economic sustainability into equal consideration; we believe this is the only way a business can be truly sustainable.

We aim to reduce our environmental impact, protect the surrounding natural environment and create significant benefits for the community while maintaining a financially viable business. By integrating sustainability into all our decisions and promoting sustainability throughout the community, including our staff and other companies with whom we do business, we’re making real progress in transforming our environmental footprint.

Reducing Environmental Impact

We have been working to successfully reduce both our energy use and our waste in a number of ways:

• Watergate Bay is leading the way in reducing landfill emissions by producing energy from our food waste . We are one of the first to install a bio digester that transforms all our food waste into hot water which then supplies Fifteen Cornwall, The Beach Hut and The Extreme Academy with their daily needs.
  
  This fantastic machine was created by Bio Nova who we have been working closely with over the last few months.
  
  We feed our machine with the food waste from all 4 of our restaurants and within 72 hours it is turned into a fuel that burns in our biomass boiler and produces the hot water. We are thrilled with the machine and the fact that we are now diverting over 80 tonnes of food waste a year away from landfill, and saving on gas use in three businesses.

• Recent refurbishments throughout the Hotel have included installing super-efficient gas-condensing boilers alongside equally efficient VRV heating and cooling units, again reducing our reliance on fossil fuels.

• Much of the insulation we have used exceeds latest building standards, reducing heat loss and saving energy.

• We have decreased each bedroom’s lighting demands from 610 watts to 110 watts and introduced occupancy/daylight sensors wherever possible, dramatically reducing the energy we use for lighting.

• Through an improved maintenance schedule and by fitting water saving devices in each hotel room, we have reduced our water consumption by almost a third.

• A full-time member of staff is employed to manage all recycling of glass, plastic, aluminium, paper, cardboard, batteries and toner cartridges, reducing our contribution to landfill to a minimum.

• In addition to our daily litter picking duties, large-scale monthly beach cleans are organised and staff members volunteer their time to help. On a quarterly basis we encourage the public to join us in cleaning the beach as part of the Marine Conservation Society’s Adopt-a-Beach initiative.

• Guests are enthusiastically encouraged to reuse towels and are also given the option to have their bed linen changed less frequently, minimising the environmental impact that laundering creates.

• The Village, our collection of 24 environmentally-sensitive two-bedroom boltholes nestled on the hillside above Watergate Bay, exceeds the current government targets for energy efficiency. For more information on this project please see: www.thevillagewatergatebay.co.uk

• We are currently looking into the potential of generating wind, water and solar power in the bay, having completed a three month feasibility study. Once the results have been analysed, we’ll create an energy strategy to deliver the greatest benefits to the business, the community and the environment.
  

We’re always looking for new ways to improve our environmental sustainability and we’ve set up a Green Team tasked with continually developing our sustainability policy.

Supporting the Local Community

The Hotel & Extreme Academy is a big part of the local community and its economy. We have a strong, reciprocal relationship with the community, providing quality, permanent employment for over 100 local people (this has increased dramatically since 2000, when that figure was just 10).

We support a large and growing number of local suppliers, growers, fishermen and farmers, helping to sustain a viable, year round economy throughout Cornwall. Our enduring relationships with these local producers enable us to offer the best seasonal, local produce to our guests.

Our relationship with the community is not merely financial; we are working on a number of environmental initiatives that include the community and promote sustainability within it. Key among these is our Energy Share proposal, a scheme to produce energy through wind, water or solar power which will deliver tangible benefits to the surrounding community.

Sustainability into the Future

We’re committed to significant long term investment in the sustainability of our business and the surrounding community, and as part of this we’ve employed a full time sustainability manager, whose sole focus is on maintaining and developing our sustainability policies. We’ll never stop looking for new technologies and methods to help us reduce our environmental impact whilst continuing to be a successful business at the heart of a thriving community.