Green initiatives at Mayo's Breaffy House Hotel aiming for gold
PART 1 IN SERIES: 'Biodiversity and sustainability at Breaffy House Resort'
By Tom Gillespie
A DEDICATED green team of senior management at the four-star Breaffy House Hotel in Castlebar is striving for gold in Fáilte Ireland’s Climate Action Programme.
Their goal is to achieve that accolade next year while they roll out a comprehensive programme of biodiversity and sustainability.
Ms. Una Kilbane, deputy general manager at the 107-bedroomed hotel, explained how they kickstarted the sustainability initiatives: “I attended several webinars hosted by various hotels showcasing their initiatives, and I couldn't help but feel amazed. We do so much here on the resort, it would be amazing for the team to be recognised for this!
“So this year we are going to participate in the hospitality awards and by the end of 2026 we want to get into the Fáilte Ireland Climate Action Programme. But as there is so much work in that our aim is to achieve gold by the end of 2026.
“The first official meeting of the Breaffy House Resort Sustainability Team took place last month.
“The long-term objectives include reducing waste, increasing local biodiversity, and improving public and guest awareness around sustainability practices at the resort.”
She added: “We always wanted to create a whole sustainability environment in Breaffy and this year we went full on. We put a green team together and they are working hard to achieve that gold recognition by the end of next year.”
Mr. David Carroll, maintenance manger, added: “Since Covid we started with our biodiversity, and sustainability just followed in behind it. One kinda married with the other. It was an easy transition.
“We have our own well water system. It has an awful lot of advantages in the sense that we have lessened the demand on the public water supply. There is a cost saving element also.
“The sustainability side of it is that we are lessening the demand on the public service, which can get drained sometime. We have our own complete water system here that is filtered, UV protected, and we soften the water ourselves. It gets chemically dosed and tested every month. We have our own drinking water certificate.
“That was one big thing that we did. The other was our solar panel system. Between the two buildings we have over a thousand plus panels - 1,037 in fact - which is huge. We're going to put displays out in reception so people can see what it generates live and we can calculate how much CO2 we have saved that the hotel hasn’t generated as a result of using mains electricity.
“At some point during the summer, when the weather is really good, it would be generating up to a quarter of a megawatt - that’s a lot of electricity.”
David added: “Changes have been made to all our lighting in the hotel. All CFL and incandescent bulbs are all gone and everything is LED. We have put light sensors in the corridors so lights are not left on all the time. They are motion activated, again reducing the carbon footprint and reducing the amount of electricity we use.”
Dave concluded: “If you walk around the grounds there are bat boxes and bird boxes everywhere. I have seen activity around some of the bat boxes and I am going to put up a trail camera to catch them going in and out.”
NEXT WEEK: Fertiliser from food scraps.