Alongside our successes in becoming more sustainable in our front of house and kitchen departments, we have made significant steps in our housekeeping department to change our methods in order to become more environmentally friendly.
Coming out of Covid lockdowns, we made the decision to minimise on our entry into our guest’s bedrooms whilst they were present to minimise on any direct contact with our team and guest items and equally so that contact was minimised for our guests. Having experienced a change in the daily routine of cleaning a bedroom when someone stays for longer than one night, we decided that this was a way for us to update our policies and use the incentive for change through Covid to continue to impact long after we stopped wearing masks. As such, our policy for cleaning ‘stays’ is to default to the housekeeping team not entering a room to clean it; if the guest desires for it to be cleaned or for their towels to be changed etc then we will continue to do so but, by and large, our communications to guests has meant that a lot of them join us on our sustainability journey and choose to leave their rooms untouched during their stay.
Clearly minimising on cleaning rooms means that we are using less cleaning products, less electricity and less water which all benefit in our goal to be as ‘green’ as we can be.
In addition to minimising on the above, we also choose not to provide bottles of water in the bedrooms (although these can be purchased) so that the water from the taps, which is on the Scottish Mains supply and therefore perfectly drinkable, is used instead. We also re-use toilet rolls that may have been started by a previous guest to minimise on the wastage of this paper (of which there would be thousands of each year) and provide fully compostable tea (including the packaging) and coffee options in the bedrooms.