Arisaig’s Glenuig inn wins top green award
THE Glenuig Inn, on the Sound of Arisaig, was presented with the Scottish Green Champions Award at the International Green Apple Awards in recognition of its environmental best practice.
Glenuig Inn, one of very few leisure and tourism businesses to clearly demonstrate that it is possible to operate efficiently and profitably with minimal environmental footprint, was developed with the vision that environmental sustainability should be at the fore.
Ten years after launching that’s still the case. No decision is made without full consideration of environmental impacts and fully engaging the team in the process.
Steve Macfarlane, a director at Glenuig, said: ‘It’s always a challenge to do the right thing for the environment and even more so when we aim to provide excellence in all we do for all our guests - especially as we’re open all day, every day, all year. We are delighted to have been named as Scottish Green Champion at the Green Apple Environment Awards, and to have been recognised for our strong environmental commitment in everything we do.’
The inn runs on 100 per cent renewable energy, and has done so since 2015, and has a zero food waste policy. Any food waste is dried, sterilised and comingled with wood pellets to provide all the heating and hot water for guests and staff.
LED lights are installed throughout and there is minimal waste which cannot be recycled or repurposed. By the end of 2017, all single-use plastics were removed, including plastic straws, black bin liners, crisp bags and individual milk portions.
Products are bought with packaging minimisation in mind and currently there is only one domestic bin of waste per fortnight being sent to landfill. There is an extensive sustainable supply chain management project being carried out at present to further reduce packaging though a ‘packaging take-back’ scheme.
Steve added: ‘As a 100 per cent renewable business, with lower energy costs in winter than summer, we believe strongly in doing the right thing across all aspects of the business, including minimising waste and truly believe that a holistic approach to creating a sustainable business is the only way to achieve real success both for the bottom line and also the environment.
‘The combined infrastructure measures and integrated operating procedures not only significantly reduce carbon emissions, but also have reduced total energy consumption to almost half while growing the business substantially.’