We’re on a mission to improve the quality of experience when holidaying in the UK whilst being mindful of our impact on local communities and the environment.
With that in mind, we’re always striving to improve standards across our business and ensure that best practices are adhered to by employees, suppliers and within our owner community.
Our aim is to leave the industry in a better state than the one we found it in so we’ve outlined some of the core activities that we’re focusing on to improve our impact on the environment, society, and governance.
Luxury Cottages was founded in 2019 to bring a high touch concierge-style of service to luxury property owners in the UK. We’re an independent company that was started with an owner-centric mentality. As we have grown the business we’ve taken on investment and we’re proud to say this includes the backing of several of our owners. We remain an independent business and have an owner representative on our board as a non-executive director. If you would like to join our owner community then please fill in the form here or contact [email protected].
Our B Corp journey started in 2022 and certification means that Luxury Cottages has undergone a comprehensive evaluation of our impact on employees, customers, suppliers, the community, and the environment. We are proud to have met the high standards of environmental and social performance set by the B Corp certification process.
We certified as a B Corp in September 2023 with an overall score of 85.0. For us the B Corp certification was a natural extension of our commitment to improving as a business and promoting the best business practices within our portfolio. This certification reflects our dedication to meeting high standards of social and environmental performance, transparency, and accountability.
As a proud B Corp, we have pledged to support several businesses in the B Corp community. Some of the partnerships include working directly with B Corps such as Bower Collective, Mindful Chef and Daylesford Organic. We also work with our friends at New Forest Escapes to regularly review our supplier arrangements and improve our business for recertification in 2026.
We are a member of Travel by B Corp, a collective of companies focused on improving the impact of businesses in the travel sector. We regularly contribute to the learning and development community and are working on initiatives to improve understanding of sustainability within the collective including our Sustainable Practice Guide. We are enjoying being a part of this growing community of businesses and have some great initiatives in the pipeline.
As part of our commitment to improving our and other business, we have created the first Sustainable Practice Guide highlighting the different practices owners use to improve their impact on the environment and local communities. We’re now working with several B fellow Corp businesses to create a cross-industry guide incorporating feedback from a more diverse pool of businesses. Keep an eye out as the next edition is coming soon.
We have created a Sustainable Cottages Collection to highlight the most sustainable properties in our portfolio and are working with owners to increase transparency of what they do to reduce their carbon footprint. We’re also working with leading sustainability brand Sustonica and offer all our owners a free certification for their properties which costs around £50 per annum so that they can evidence the sustainability of their property.
We ask that guests be mindful of their impact on the environment when staying with us. This means using recycling bins, unplugging appliances when not in use and turning off lights when out. We also encourage walking where possible and using public transport rather than travelling by car. Responsible tourism isn’t just about reducing your carbon footprint but also extends to supporting local communities. We’re an advocate of supporting local businesses such as pubs, restaurants, and shops. Many of our properties are located within a short walk of some amazing local suppliers. Feel free to get in touch with our Guest Services team to help plan your stay.
We are a 100% work from home business however our biggest source of vehicle emissions comes from our Property Portfolio Managers who inspect our properties in person to ensure their quality. We have stringent criteria for assessing whether a property will be a good fit for the portfolio and reject far more than we take on.
In order to reduce our vehicle emissions we have identified the following activities:
Working with our owners we are proud to announce we now have electric car chargers at more than 30% of our properties. We work with an EV charging company Voltshare and offer a discount to our owners for installing one.
We use Ecologi to measure our carbon footprint and offset our business travel by planting trees. However, we felt that was not enough and now plant a tree for every booking to partially offset the carbon emissions from travelling to our portfolio. We’re conscious that not every booking is the same and people travel all over the world to visit the UK and stay in our portfolio. With that in mind we’re undertaking a comprehensive audit of our carbon footprint to identify ways of reducing our carbon emissions.
Petrol and diesel car emissions are the largest contributor to your carbon footprint when you travel domestically. We’re conducting an in depth review into the carbon impact of travel within our portfolio and will be sharing the results in our next Impact Report. We also offer a discount to our guests for travelling by more carbon efficient means including train and electric vehicle travel. Contact our Guest Services team for more information.
At Luxury Cottages we understand that all our business decisions have an impact. We’re constantly learning and improving our understanding of our business using data and we’re currently undergoing data collection projects to better understand our impact and how we can improve it.
As passionate animal lovers we have a long-standing association with the National Animal. Welfare Trust who we support with regular donations as well as competition prizes. We’re also proud supporters of Solovey Spirit which has been set up to raise £1,000,000 for Ukrainian refugees.
Luxury Cottages supports the Better Business Act calling for legislation to put people and planet accountability for businesses on an equal footing with profit.
At Luxury Cottages we offset our business travel by planting trees with Ecologi. We also now plant a tree for every booking to help offset some of the carbon from guest travel. So far we have funded the planting of over 1,800 trees and avoided 126 tCO2e. Our goal was to reach 2,000 trees planted by the end of 2024 but we think we can hit more than 3,000…. Keep an eye out on our progress on our Ecologi profile.
We have assessed the impact of our website and are working towards a reduction of carbon emissions. We have a hosting package that runs on green energy as by the Green Web Foundation.
We are committed to equality and diversity and monitor our Human Resources by age, sex, and ethnicity. We’re proud to say that we are over 80% female represented within the business and 25% at board level.
We provide accessibility information on property pages where relevant and have created an Accessible Cottages Collection. if you need further details please contact our Guest Services team.
We are committed to eliminating single use plastics in our portfolio by the end of 2025 by working with our owners to improve their understanding of the impact on the environment.
If you have any questions about any of our cottages or if you’d like some help with your booking, you are very welcome to get in touch with us.
We are always happy to help and go out of our way to tailor your perfect UK holiday.
Ashbourne, Derbyshire 
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