In an industry-leading move for two successive years, Whatley Manor announces the achievement of net-negative carbon status by maximising its carbon reduction on property and supporting a nature-based carbon sequestration project to remove more hard-to-abate carbon emissions than emitted for 2023.
Whatley Manor has taken its climate action to the next level by entering into a three-year purchase agreement to invest in 8,250 high-quality carbon credits produced by the San Jerónimo Coatlán Carbon Sequestration Project in Mexico, which support Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) 1, 3, 6, 8, 13, 15 and 17 for impactful social, economic and environmental benefits. The project works with Climate Action Reserve (CAR), a high-quality carbon credit registry that establishes rigorous standards involving multi-sector stakeholder workgroup development and local engagement, and issues carbon credits in a transparent and publicly available system. The Reserve carbon credits program demonstrates that high-quality carbon credits, known as Climate Reserve Tonnes (CRT), foster reductions in GHG pollution that are real, additional, verifiable, enforceable, and permanent.
This November, Whatley Manor will retire 1250 high quality carbon credits to offset more than the 1057.2 tCO₂e (tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent) emitted in 2023. An additional 7,000 carbon credits will be retired in the following two years to offset more than the projected CO₂e from anticipated renovation work and guest travel to the hotel in 2024 and 2025.
“At this most urgent of times, we believe that we are responsible for our total impact and helping other remote communities, as well as being accountable, transparent and compliant in our actions,” noted Christian Landolt, owner of Whatley Manor.
“This bold step is one of Whatley Manor’s most robust contributions to our decarbonisation journey. After achieving 98% carbon reduction in Scopes 1 & 2, five years ahead of SBTi (Science Base Targets Initiative) targets, we are turning our attention to all that Scope 3 entails,” says Sue Williams, sustainability advisor to Whatley Manor and founder of Positive Hospitality.
View Whatley Manor’s SUSTAINABILITY REPORT
Whatley Manor’s strategic actions to maximise carbon reduction before offsetting includes converting from Natural Gas to Bio Gasrenewable energy, upgrading insulation throughout the building for energy efficiency, reducing waste by 31% per guest night and the remaining waste confirmed as Zero to landfill, sending all food waste to an anaerobic digester to make Bio Gas, auditing the full supply chain and holding supplier knowledge-building events to increase collaboration, investing in new technology that will generate energy from waste on property in 2025, and a Tree and Biodiversity Audit in 2024 which led to garden improvements, establishing an effective composting regime, the removal of all pesticides and the introduction of BioChar to the soil to ensure all garden waste is put to good use.
NOW founder Alexa Poortier elaborated, “Net-negative carbon emissions (previously known as Climate Positive) is achieved by rigorously measuring, reducing and removing more CO₂e (carbon dioxide equivalent) than is emitted. CO₂e is a standard unit for measuring carbon footprints which calculate the environmental impact and global warming potential of all greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and water vapor). Whatley Manor’s owner and team are ‘forces for good’ with the strong will, determination and courage to surmount sustainability challenges and support SDGs, and to lead on climate action and prove that luxury and sustainability can thrive together.”
Grounded in Science, Accountability, Transparency and Compliance
Whatley Manor is EarthCheck Silver Certified, a science-backed verification standard with a rigorous carbon footprint calculation process, and an independent audit conducted every year.
Whatley Manor is a member of NOW Force for Good Leaders which provide hotels access to a sustainability academy and coaches/specialists to support implementation and compliance, a Sustainability Reporting Tool for transparency to stakeholders and access to high-integrity carbon offset projects with financial rebates to support bold climate action.
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