Sustainability At Our Heart

Putting sustainability at the heart of our venues

When sustainability features high on your location criteria list you don’t have to sacrifice glamour for convenience or prestige for practicality.

London’s Country Estate, with Windsor at its heart, extends over vast landscapes of well-kept grounds and beautiful countryside including over 1,000 acres of National Trust land in the north and 4,800 acres of Crown Estate. It features large country hotel estates and private islands in the River Thames accessible only by boat. Windsor Castle is the oldest and largest inhabited castle in the world and is one of the official residences of His Majesty The King. There are spectacular venues chosen by Royal couples from Princes and Princesses to Dukes and Duchesses, high profile social events and a galaxy of Michelin stars for fine dining options.

Windsor is close to Heathrow airport, and well served by public transport, including two railway lines facilitating short journey times of less than an hour by public transport to the capital. There are locally brewed craft beers, several gin distillers and dining establishments striving to source and serve local ingredients. Many hotel estates grow their own herbs and vegetables, support wildlife, keep beehives and support a quiet revolution with refillable toiletries, solar panel heating, plastic and food waste reduction, composting and rainwater harvesting.

Dig deeper and you’ll find hotels utilising modern technologies and adapting to meet sustainability requirements without losing their heritage and identity. Great Fosters recently switched to 100% renewable electricity supply, mainly derived from offshore wind-power farms. Produce grown or foraged from the grounds and used in preparation of seasonal dishes in the Oak Room includes apples, wild plums, mulberries and blackberries. The Monkey Island Estate kitchen garden features home grown herbs and pickling vegetables and the island supports four beehives, a smokehouse and six chickens, all named after famous ladies on the estate. Oakley Court’s comprehensive green events policy includes reusable water bottles, glass writing boards, pencils and conference pads made from recycled paper, outdoor break-out spaces, lunches of locally sourced produce and seasonal home grown salads. The onsite water dispenser provides chilled still and sparkling water in reusable glass bottles, a system up to 40% more efficient than other systems. Outdoors there is complimentary bike hire to explore the local area and free charging for delegates with electric vehicles. The Runnymede hotel successfully diverts 100% of waste from landfill sites and uses an Eco-Safe Digester to aerobically digest all food waste. Plastic straws and stirrers were replaced by bio-degradable paper straws and bamboo in all Restaurants and Bars in March 2018. Wildlife supporting measures to enhance the environment include planting new native woodland and the provision of electric boats. There’s an underground energy centre at Coworth Park, which is the UK’s only hotel to grow its own fuel by cultivating willow on the estate for use in the biomass heating plant. The Spa is predominantly built from timber structures with a Living Roof of plants and herbs and the magnificent 10-acre wildflower meadow is one of the hotel’s dominant external features.

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