Your organisations purpose:
We are devoted to delivering exceptional weddings and events that don’t come at the expense of the environment. We’re on a mission to prove that couples and businesses can have a sustainable wedding or event without compromising upon their vision and actively encourage them to make more sustainable choices.
What is your impact initiative?
Leading the way to operate sustainably as a venue and inspiring others to follow us has become our mission in our incredibly wasteful industry.
We are committed to reducing our own emissions as a venue through our internal efforts on energy and waste management (see our sustainability policy here: http://haynehouse.co.uk/sustainability/).
We recognise that we cannot achieve our own sustainability goals without bringing our customers, supply chain - and indeed our industry - on the journey with us, so working with them is crucial to reaching our ambitions.
To that effect, we have several initiatives in place to raise awareness and push for change in our industry, such as:
• Engaging and supporting our suppliers by raising awareness, hosting and delivering workshops around sustainability, encouraging them to operate more sustainably by sharing our experience and best practices.
• Encouraging customers to make more sustainable choices by giving them better options, providing them with resources to understand the impact of their decisions and rewarding them for making sustainable choices.
• Being active players in our industry and beyond, using our venue to promote sustainability to other businesses through hosting events and taking part in industry sustainability events.
The impact your initiative has had:
From an energy point of view, we are on track to achieve our first target ahead of schedule which is to halve our scopes 1 and 2 emissions by 2025, thanks to the installation of our solar panel array and energy-saving initiatives over the past 3 years. Through tracking our waste and working with our caterers and florists by introducing our on-site compost we have seen our waste reduce year on year.
Our efforts to raise awareness and work with our suppliers have been incredibly rewarding and enabled us to give our clients more sustainable options. For example, we have worked closely with our caterers to offer our clients more sustainable food choices and put together our "Conscious Menu" offering dishes with a lower carbon footprint.
We also worked closely with our drinks suppliers so as to promote predominately local and/or sustainably sourced beers, wines and spirits, as well as reduce our glass waste significantly.
Our Sustainability Initiative "A Wedding Doesn't Have To Cost The Earth" is aimed at wedding couples and rewards them with prizes for taking steps to make their wedding more sustainable. Every step they complete is a step in the right direction!
Have you observed any direct benefits to your business or organisation as a result of the initiative?
With more and more people wanting to reduce the impact of their wedding or event, we believe that operating as sustainably as possible responds to that need, and we are proud to have recently certified as a B Corp.
Taking these initiatives has energised our team, giving us a great sense of achievement which has been a real benefit for us as a business.
Our efforts to reduce our energy consumption and generate our own energy have definitely helped us reduce our energy costs and our emissions.
Have you observed any benefits to your visitors as a result of the initiative?
Absolutely - we love hearing stories from our suppliers about the sustainable actions they have put in place in their business as a result of one of our "nudges", with some suppliers suggesting our ideas to other venues.
We definitely feel that our couples are more aware of sustainability and enjoy seeing them making more sustainable choices. It has also been very rewarding to see members of our team become advocates for sustainability in their personal and professional roles.
What category/categories does your initiative fall under?
- Reducing energy use
- Food for Good – reducing food miles, local seasonal produce, plant-based & organic
- Reducing waste
Address:
Hayne House, Hayne Barn, Saltwood, Hythe, CT21 4EH
Website:
Contact email address:
enquiries@haynehouse.co.uk
