Sustainability

Environmental sustainability is of vital importance to our business.

Our policy at Countrywide Cottages is to make sure we are doing anything we can to reduce our carbon footprint. We go well beyond simply living off our magnificent bushland setting as our environmental mark in the tourism industry.

Some of our strategies so far include:

• Development of a written Sustainability Policy
• Recycle bins at each cottage
• Cork collection for recycling
• Compact fluorescent globes in use almost exclusively
• Water supply collected entirely on site
• Grey water usage in laundry
• Low/no phosphate/sodium products used
• Non chemical cleaning products used almost exclusively
• Solar rated hot water systems in use
• Post consumer recycled paper products and recycled printer cartridges used in the office
• Native and indigenous tree plantings on site
• Environmental weed eradication program
• Effective management of soil erosion on site
• Part of the ‘Land for Wildlife’ native animal corridor program

We are currently working with Geelong Otway Tourism in their Green Steps program. The aim of the program is to assist the local tourism industry to assess their environmental impact and set targets and action plans to reduce this impact. This program will lead us to Green Globe benchmarking in the near future.