The Hotel & Extreme Academy is operated with a strong commitment to the environment and to the local economic and social community.

We believe that to be sustainable we must make sure that the environment, social and economic sustainability are all given equal consideration. For instance, we can only take decisive action on limiting our environmental impact if we have an economically viable business and willing, happy staff to help us see it through.

Reducing environmental impact:

During our recent extensive refurbishment we decreased each bedroom’s lighting demands from 610 watts to 110 watts whilst still improving the ambience. We have used maximum insulation to reduce the loss of heat throughout the building and spent £80,00 on a boiler system which uses the latest, super-efficient gas condensing technology to reduce our need for fossil fuels.

The employment of two full-time members of staff (shared with Fifteen Cornwall) to manage all recycling of glass, plastic, metal, paper and card has greatly reduced our contribution to landfill waste. These staff members also work to keep the beach clean, which in turn keeps the sea cleaner.

We only use biodegradable bin bags and our containers for the takeaway are compostable.

Guests are enthusiastically encouraged to reuse towels and they are also given the option to have their bed linen changed less frequently, minimising the environmental impact that laundering creates. Our employees are encouraged to car share whenever possible.

Supporting the local community:

We vigorously support the local economic and social community by creating a successful, year round business that employs 90 full time, permanent staff members (this has increased dramatically since 2000, when that figure was just 10). Guests and visitors attracted to our business throughout the year invariably go on to visit and spend money with many other local businesses, helping to create a stronger local economy. Our policy of using local produce whenever we can (we prefer to use local non-organic produce than organic non-local produce) also contributes to the local economy and reduces environmental impact as a result of fewer food miles.

Can we do more?

Of course there is always more that can be done but we believe that the foundations of good sustainable practice are in place. For the future we are considering plenty of ideas. These range from composting all our food waste to supplementing our boiler system with bio-mass to name but a few. We will keep you posted.