50 Shades Greener Gold Level Award

 

Our Journey so far

We continue to monitor our Carbon footprint monthly by measuring and monitoring our consumption. We are proud to be reducing this year on year with a current measurement of 4.2 Co2 kg per person in 2023.

We achieved repurposing wood and metal and creating planters to grow our own “Mint” “Parsley” “Thyme” which were enjoyed all summer long in our Cocktails and Dishes within our Spa and Food & Beverage outlets.

Our walkway was enhanced with the addition of an “Insect Hotel” and “Butterfly Garden” and Maps displayed to eliminate the need for paper maps.  We worked with our local Men’s shed and Imelda at Mountain View “Garden Centre” to achieve our dreams.  We celebrated “Green Fingers week” with encouraging our team to enjoy our Butterfly and herb garden and help educate them on the importance of this for both health and wellbeing. A huge highlight to this project was working with the children from Scoil Naoimh Brid in Ballyconnell. The Children from fifth class came to assist with planting our flowers and seeds within the Butterfly garden and they officially opened our Bug Hotel. Celebrations followed with some big competition on the Adventure Golf course and everyone enjoyed a lovely lunch outdoors on a sunny afternoon in June. The Children made this a very wholesome and worthy project by their appreciation shown and their declaration that this day was as good as a school tour. Thank you to the Children and their Teachers. We hope they all enjoy walks with their Families and Friends watching their plants flourish through the years.

It has also been a joy to connect with Michael, Felix and the Team at Belturbet Men’s shed. Our visits to get to know the Group as well as working with them on building our Bug Hotel has been an enlightening experience. The service and facilities they offer within their community makes us proud to support them in any way we can. We provide the group with pallets and any wood from trees which regretfully may fall or have to be taken down on the grounds. This wood will be used to create beautiful unique pieces by Felix and his team. Some of Felix work is on display at the hotel and available to purchase within our Gift Shop. To say thank you, the Group recently enjoyed some afternoon tea at the Slieve Russell and were pictured being presented with some wood from the Golf course.

Our Team have continued to learn about Sustainability throughout the year, with Departmental projects assigned to Management and a big focus on making your department more sustainable. 10 members of the team completed “Green Skills for Life Training” in conjunction with 50shadesgreener. Staff suggestion incentives offered for ideas within this area. Litter picking has been completed during the year.

Accessibility has also been a passion this year within the Resort. We created an information page on our website to ensure that Guests with additional needs have information to hand when planning their visit and also that they know we are here to support and help them enjoy their visit in any way they can. We have installed additional Parking spaces at the front of the hotel. Our Reservations team have received training in how to help our Guests enjoy the resort to its full potential. We want Guests to understand, we are here to help and are willing to modify or adjust rooms to help meet your needs. Never hesitate to speak to us in advance.

We also refurbished our Soft Play room and created a multi-sensory room offering young children and in particular those with sensory issues a quiet space to enjoy whilst staying with us. The room has been specially designed by Multisensory Ireland (a local Cavan business) to allow users to relax and enjoy a range of sensory experiences such as sight, movement and touch.

Sight – Bubble Tube with bubbles and fish and a Mirror Disco Ball

Movement – Soft Play Step and Slide

Touch – Tactile Touch Panel with Padded Corner

https://www.slieverussell.ie/accessibility/

Energy Consumption

We measure and record our energy consumption on a monthly basis. Sub meters are in place and monitored to establish consumption within areas and high consuming equipment. High energy equipment is being phased out where possible and strict operating guidelines are in place for these items. Lighting charts have been completed in many areas. All light fittings operate with LED lighting, sensors in place for back of house areas and checklists are in place for turning off appliances and lighting in all areas of the hotel each evening or during off peak times. Our New hot water boiler which runs at 97% efficiency is greatly helping us achieve savings in gas consumption, so fare we have seen savings of 2% however we expect this to reduce further over time. We continue to work through our energy balance survey and have recently installed a new air handling system within our Country Club. Our Oil consumption is showing -56% so far, our Electricity consumption -9.6%

Waste

We have a comprehensive recycling and waste management programme in place for our glass, cardboard, recyclables, paper and food waste. All areas have been fitted with their relevant requirements for recycling and bin audits are carried out routinely to monitor and asses how they are being used. Our efforts to reduce single use plastic encourages the reuse of plastic room cards with the additional this year of a mobile phone room key option which both reduces the need for plastic as well as making a Guests arrival more efficient if this is what they prefer for their check in. Hydration stations located around bedroom corridors service our Guests with an unlimited supply of water, this effort which has been in place since 2021 has reduced our plastic waste by over 156,000 thousand bottles per year.  Rituals product wall dispensers are fitted throughout our bedrooms eliminating single use toiletries.  Meeting rooms are serviced with fresh water from our well and our Green meeting policy is communicated to all Clients. Vending machines have been stocked with the best options for recycling and sustainability. We have a no paper cup policy within our staff canteen and all Staff this year were presented with their own Slieve Russell Reusable cup. Straws within our bars are a bio degradable alternative and staff have been trained in how to compost or recycle these. We have reduced our paper waste by ensuring all our HR systems are digital including recruitment process, digital on-boarding process, digital online training platform and Spa forms are digital, communicating rotas and notes electronically via our Staff app. Email receipts are now being offered at check out to reduce our printing at the front desk and we consistently remind the team to think before they print. The Food production team complete audits on food waste and monitor and React to menu items which are frequently left behind. These are swapped out for alternative options.  So far in 2023 we are delighted to have reduced our waste by 10.8% Our Recycling figures have increased by 43% which is a combination of refurbishment and better efforts from the team.

Water consumption

Our Maintenance team measure our water consumption on a regular basis. Water flow rates were checked in hotel bedrooms and public areas in cisterns, taps and showers. We have fitted aerator shower heads in all our bedrooms which have reduced the water consumption to 9 litres per minute without taking away from our Guest experience. Sensor taps have been fitted in public area bathrooms and have reduced their flow rates to 3 litres per minute which is a great reduction, the refurbishment of our Golf Club Bathrooms have all included sensor taps and aerator shower heads. We have educated the team as part of our Green Induction to the business and discourage the running of taps, we action dripping taps as part of our maintenance programme. We water our Golf course from the lake and use recycled rain water to wash machinery. We have reduced our water consumption so far in 2023 by 0.09%

Green Purchasing

At Slieve Russell, we are committed to responsible purchasing and trying to source our products and services locally where possible. We prioritise suppliers who have embedded sustainable and ethical practices, e.g. Our Electricity is a Green Supplier which has helped us achieve a reduction in our carbon footprint. We support local and smaller businesses, Cunningham’s Pork & Bacon, Priors Fruit & Vegetable are two examples of this. We buy in bulk to reduce the energy used in transport and reduce packaging, this year we have moved some orders from weekly to monthly to enhance this endeavour. We have explored the option of Green chemicals for Housekeeping however we have not found the perfect product in this range as yet to meet all our needs. We consider the environmental impact on our purchases. Recent purchases of Golf course machinery included Hybrid mowers by John Deere. We have a Green purchasing team in place at the hotel. As refurbishment has continued through 2023, we have continued to upcycle furniture, recycle and rehome furniture and fabrics.

Ciúin Spa & Wellness Centre – We offer fresh water from our well for drinking. Our GAIA products are all packaged within refillable containers, incentives are in place for guests to refill their retail products. Our retail bag, is a Cloth bag for life. Our paper consultation forms are electronic and all spa disposable items such as cotton pads and spatulas have been replaced with washable sustainable products.

 

Wellbeing for our Team

Our team is the key to our success at the hotel and so we ensure that we put in place mechanisms to ensure that we can provide our employees with a “Great Place to Work”. Our approach to recruitment is targeting diverse pools of talent, enabling us to attract more people to create an inclusive culture.

Communication is key to a happy team, we have different ways in which our employees can communicate and to keep up dated on events and news in the hotel, these include use of our Company staff app for direct messaging, group messaging and our hotel Newsfeed, all digital.

We also have daily briefings and monthly team meetings. Our Department ambassadors have flourished in the past year and have greatly enhanced enthusiasm and communication within each department and we value the department Ambassador’s input into decisions on events, changes and policy introduction at the hotel. We also complete regular Staff Survey’s and in November 2022 as a result of “A great place to work” we received certification by the CEO of Great place to Work. Focus Groups within departments have continued throughout the year.

To continue to improve our Systems of care, The Hotel have embarked on the Failte Ireland Employer Excellence Programme, all Managers have completed the “Fundamentals of People Management “training. This programme focuses on proactive employee engagement and works on building this engagement into the culture of the hotel and will ultimately help to reposition the hotel in the industry as an employer of choice.

This year at the hotel we introduced a new suite of policies to support wellbeing which include Fertility Policy, Menopause policy and Gender Identity & Expression. To support the introduction of the Menopause policy we offered workshop for our team to attend to understand the signs of Menopause and how to be more compassion and support to our team members who are experiencing these symptoms. The hotel was a finalist in October 2023 for an award of Menopause Workplace Excellence.

In June 2023 we launched our Gender Identity & Expression policy during Pride week. This was very welcomed by the team, we had a celebratory afternoon and took some excellent pictures with the team and the Pride flag.

With the introduction of these new policies we were selected and awarded by Investors in Diversity in July 2023.

We were also awarded the Excellent Employer of the Year by Failte Ireland in April 2023.

We have an extensive yearly Calendar of Health & Wellbeing events and each year starts with our Health & Wellbeing program called “Revitalize” which is a six week program employee led program in which we provide; Medical checks, Personal Lifestyle Consultation, Healthy nutritious meals in our staff canteen, Nutritional talks, Sports Therapy and tailored employee fitness classes, exclusive Self Care Spa treatments , employee points challenge, Mountain climbs & ending with a Family & Friends Fun 5km  walk / run with all proceeds donated to our chosen charity Partner – Pieta House.

As a team we have run a number of events for our chosen charity of choice Pieta House these included a 5KM run on the grounds of the hotel, Bake Sale for the team, Staff Raffle and our Christmas Jumper day will be in aid of Pieta House, we hope to be in a position to donate over €2,000 to the charity by the end of the year, Pieta House answer approx. 300 calls /texts each day so this fundraising will be able to provide much needed support to those in need.

We support our employee’s Mental Health through our:

Employee Assistance Programme: which offers a 24 hours’ confidential support programme at no additional cost that provides our employees and their family members with immediate help and support in managing whatever work or personal issues you are facing. Including support to those dealing with Loss & Grief, stress and anxiety, Low moods, Marital or relationship problems, family problems and Substances abuse issues.

Health and Well-being Support Programme:  We offer all employee’s access to free Mental Health and Well Being Programmes.  This programme is provided in association Spectrum Life and offer all our employees access to a range of online and over the phone services to help people overcome life’s physical, mental, financial and personal challenges they may be facing. Confidential support – via telephone, email or web chat. Financial advice, consumer advice, legal assistance, career counselling, legal assistance, meditation, support for foreign employees & life coaching are all different services that can be accessed.

We were delighted to invite a Life Coach in to visit the hotel in September 2023 to give inspiration and direction to our team to help them reach their own personal goals. This event was very beneficial to all who attended.

We celebrated World Gratitude Day and International Happiness at Work by providing a celebratory afternoon in our Staff Canteen along with gifting our employees with some cosmetic products and sweet gifts.

Our Staff Social Club has enjoyed a return to full activities this year with Mystery Tours, Easter parties for our Employees Children, Pre summer party. Table quiz, DJ Nights, and the most anticipated event since 2020 is the post-Christmas trip to the sun to enjoy much laughter after a busy holiday season.

We continue to use the feedback from our employees to update and provide relevant supports and information to support our employees.

 

Our Goals for 2024

• We have planted native Irish Bluebells within the Forest of our walkway. We look forward to the Beauty and enjoyment this will bring in Spring of 2024.
• Refurbish our Accessible Bedrooms and improve their facilities.
• Make our Swimming Pool accessible for Guests with special needs.
• Install poly tunnels to increase the volume of herbs and micro salads that can be home grown.
• Plant a tree for every wedding in 2024.
• Assist our Local Tidy Towns and Council with Litter picking in our local area.
• Continue to Support Local Charities & Business.
• Host a wellbeing event for our local community.
• Reduce Gas consumption by 5%
• Reduce our Landfill waste by 5%
• Reduce our Energy Consumption by 5%
• Reduce our Carbon footprint from 4.3 to 4.0 Co2 kg per person.