Community Engagement
As part of our sustainability journey one of our key goals is to ensure that as a business we bring benefits to our local community, this includes providing employment and purchasing local produce where we can. In recent years we have focussed on building our relationships locally, supporting community sustainability groups and their activities.
We recently hosted a second meeting at Whatley for the local business community to gather and share best practice and general information. In attendance were 16 representatives from community groups in Malmesbury, Sherston and Tetbury and a cross section of town councillors.
Hannah Griffin, Laura Morgan Forster, Sarah Wolferstan from Sustainable Sherston, Malmesbury Climate Action Network, Renew and Fruitful Malmesbury respectively shared their organisations’ focuses and activities aiming to raise awareness for sustainable living.
Will Cook from Tetbury shared his first-hand experience of installing and running eco-friendly energy systems, including a geothermal borehole, solar panels and a roof-top hot water system.
The participants shared how much they appreciate this collaborative network, it provides a platform for local businesses to engage on this important subject, plan to support each other’s activities and take away knowledge and information from the discussions.
We look forward to growing this network and supporting the community activity throughout the year.
Working together with our suppliers
It is critically important for our business and our sustainability targets that we procure the most sustainable products and work with businesses that have a shared commitment to sustainability to enable us to reach our target of achieving Net Zero Carbon Emission for Scope 3 by 2035
For the second year, we hosted a supplier’s workshop day, this gives us an opportunity to meet with key partners, update them on our strategy and targets and hear how they are progressing in their own sustainability journey.
Sixteen members from our existing and prospective supply chain attended the event representing a broad spectrum of products and services including, food, wine, spa and guest experiences. The debate was lively and engaging and it was encouraging to see so many of our suppliers have made big strides on their sustainability journey since we last met.
The level of commitment has ensured that businesses who had set ambitious targets when we last met have already reached these goals and are now striving to do more.
The session was very transparent, success stories were offset by genuine discussion around the challenges businesses face and knowledge and best practice was shared.
Working together in this way we can make a difference and find innovative solutions, suppliers and hoteliers can be a combined force to support sustainable tourism.
The Whatley Team
The recent community event and the suppliers day were organised by, Sue Williams, General Manager, Florence Yu, Sustainability Officer and Magalay Etter, Supply Chain Officer. Sue addressed each event sharing Whatley’s progress, best practice, forward strategy and success stories.
The whole team have been active in supporting the community events throughout this year including the Earth Day litter pick, Apple Days in Malmesbury and Sherston and the Climate Action event in Sherston and we look forward to attending more during the next 12 months.
