FIVE-STAR hotel Bovey Castle has landed a world-leading certification for its green credentials after a bumper year of sustainability successes.

The luxury Dartmoor hotel has been recognised by Green Tourism, a certification that has been assessing travel, tourism and hospitality businesses’ approaches to sustainability for more than 27 years.

Bovey Castle achieved the highest Gold rating.

The hotel has implemented various practices such as community engagement, employee health and wellbeing, and customer experiences, through to energy usage, carbon reduction and waste management.

It also comes after the hotel also introduced a 1,400 square metre kitchen garden to grow produce on-site, and planting a new wildflower meadow.

Bovey Castle is part of Eden Hotel Collection – which has five hotels – all of which now operate on 100per cent renewable energy, while their collective waste last year saw 35.5per cent directly recycled; with 55per cent converted into renewable energy and 9.5per cent anaerobically digested.

Dean Gunston, general manager at Bovey Castle, said: ‘We know that sustainability is increasingly becoming a key consideration for customers when they are booking a stay, so we’re delighted to be given a gold grading by sustainability experts.

‘Investing in a new kitchen garden and introducing tours to educate our guests on fork-to-fork eating is something we are expecting to grow in popularity .

‘Our people have to buy in to our approach to sustainability in order for us to make projects such as the kitchen garden a success so this gold grading symbolises their commitment.’

Jayne O’Malley, group operations director at Eden Hotel Collection, worked closely with each hotel and Green Tourism’s assessors to develop the organisation’s green credentials.

She said: ‘Some of the properties we own and operate date back as far as the 16th century, but through our commitment to invest in sustainability, they are at the forefront of modern approaches of green hospitality, whether through renewable energy, utilising local suppliers, or on-site kitchen gardens for produce.’