Stay Green

Village takes part in the Green Tourism accreditation scheme for hotels and leisure operators. As part of this, our hotels are rated according to various criteria, such as carbon impact, social, wellbeing and biodiversity. We are taking steps to ensure all hotels are aligned with Green Tourism’s Silver standard and will then look to build on this with additional improvements in the months and years ahead. With 1 of our hotels already achieved Gold award.

Working with Accenture, we calculated that in 2022 our carbon impact was 58,036 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (toc2e). This was split into Scope 1: 14,985 tco2e; Scope 2: 12649 tco2e and Scope 3 30,402 tco2e. This equates to around 58,000 tonnes of carbon, or 58,000 Hot Air Balloons.

With the support of expert partners at Accenture, a ‘Decarbonisation’ workstream has been developed to help Village accurately record, and reduce carbon emissions. In 2022 Village started work to understand the baseline carbon footprint, with a view to setting a Science Based Target under the Science Based Target Initiative (SBTi).  This workstream is currently in progress but has lead to Village gain the following insights and agree next steps:

• Village fully understands the carbon footprint of its emission scope;
• Village is assessing the impact of changing energy to renewable sources (this change was made in 2023);
• Understanding what decarbonisation of the portfolio considerations are (adaptation to building and systems);
• Developing a full procurement policy to decarbonise the Village supply chain.

Village is working towards using a Science Based Target Initiative to clearly map out its emissions targets and action plans to reach net zero by 2050. We are still finalising our plans but will be able to share short term targets and our roadmap to Net Zero later in 2024.

Through the Stay Green pillar of Village Green, we are taking proactive steps to reduce our carbon impact. This is using a Science Based Target Initiative route to Net Zero, and includes targets for near and long-term goals, with an ultimate target of hitting Net Zero by 2050.

We recently partnered with Ionity to install Superfast Charging electric vehicle chargers across our 33 hotels over the next 18 months. This is the largest deal that Ionity has agreed with a single operator in the UK and ensures that we play our part in transitioning guests and colleagues to a greener future. We also encourage our colleagues to take more sustainable forms of transport to work, such as cycling or car-shares.

Yes!  As of October 2023, we source 100% renewable electricity and green gas.

We partner with Accenture, who provides an optimisation service for our buildings. As part of this, Accenture monitors the running of the plant and equipment at the site via the Building Management System (BMS) to ensure it is running at its optimum level of efficiency. It has oversight of electricity and gas consumption and looks for areas to reduce consumption and therefore cost and carbon outputs from the sites.

Village currently has 5 Hotels with a BREEAM rating. This is being further progressed in 2024 and a further 5 Hotels are being scoped out to be BREEAM assessed in 2024.   The BREEAM ratings will not only provide third party verification, but will also identify opportunities of carbon improvement across the portfolio that should support the work carried out under the SBTi.