“Reinventing castle stays for a new generation of travellers” 

Sustainability

Kilmartin Castle is committed to promoting a more sustainable way of life offering accommodation for the sustainably minded traveller.

We strive to provide a positive experiences for visitors, with clear information prior to their visit and only recommending other businesses who also have a sustainable outlook.

We have taken a number of steps to reduce our environmental footprint at Kilmartin Castle. 

WHAT WE BUY

If sourcing meat, we support local farmers with high animal welfare standards and free-range livestock practices. Our eggs are from Bellochantuy Farm, and Milk is from the cows of Wee Isle Dairy on the Isle of Gigha. We passionately support our small independent shops on our local high street, including Marmalade, an ethical deli, and Murrays, a family-owned smokery. Our bread is handmade Sourdough from Freedom Bakery. 

In our bathrooms you will find Who Gives A Crap loo roll, who donate 50% of their profits to their mission of ensuring that everyone has access to clean water and a toilet within our lifetime. Toilet roll is made from sustainably grown bamboo. Shampoo, conditioner and body wash are Faith in Nature, natural, cruelty free and vegan. Rivka moved to Scotland where she gathered seaweed from the beach to make their first shampoo. Their bottles are 100% recycled and recyclable and product is dispensed into beautiful pottery in our bathrooms, handmade by Glasgow artist Claire Henry.

GARDEN DESIGN AND PLANTING

In 2021 we worked with award winning Chelsea Flower Show designer Amber Crowley, to create a garden with nature in mind. We built a large wild swimming pool which provides the opportunity to swim in fresh, clear water without a trace of chemicals, but also attracts and sustains a wide array of wildlife, drastically increasing the biodiversity of our garden.

A dry stone wall divides the raised lawn from the newly planted orchard and has been built without mortar, the many nooks and crannies are so valuable for wildlife. Lichen, mosses and ferns grow on and between the rocks, bees visit the nectar-giving flowers that grow in less exposed areas; and frogs, toads and slow-worms shelter in damp crevices. 

We grow our own herbs, fruits, and vegetables in our organic kitchen garden and encourage you, when staying with us as a self-catering guest, to treat the garden as an addition to your welcome hamper, picking and using anything ripe and ready. 

FOOD AND WATER

We support #ZeroFoodWaste and promote eating greener. We minimise leftover food by asking you to make your breakfast selection the evening before so we can prep only what we need. We believe that the more vegetarian food we eat, the better this is for the climate. Therefore, good vegetarian and vegan options are always available on our breakfast menu. Our composting with the breakdown of food waste in the soil goes into our raised beds and feeds the new vegetables we grow.

Our early riser breakfast hampers use fully compostable containers and reusable coffee cups.  

We work with local Argyll Coffee Roasters who believe in sustainability and paying a fair price to growers for their beans. We mix our own castle blend, Wake the Bishop.  A local artist designed and produces our cards and we print our own tea towels. Handmade Candle Co make our candles and room sprays. Their materials are sourced carefully, ethically and locally with the environment in mind. All products are vegan, cruelty-free, phthalate & paraben free.

All for sale in the Grand Hall Gift Shop.

We use tap water! Our obsession with bottled water in the UK means that over 2.5 billion litres are consumed yearly, leading to around 8 billion plastic bottles being discarded. Most are sent for recycling, but an alarming number are sent to landfills or left to pollute our waterways. Tap water is often much purer as it has to pass more stringent compliance tests, and to date, Scottish tap water has a 99.89% pass rate.

ENERGY

Our electricity provider uses renewable energy sources primarily from wind, solar and hydro (water) sources to power their 100% green electricity.

OUR CORE VALUES

Reduce | Re-use | Recycle

Eradicate single use plastic

Value people | Pay fairly

Support local | Reduce food miles