Our Sustainability Policy

Our guests experience something special when visiting Akaroa Cottages in our own private wilderness paradise. As the managers of Akaroa Cottages located on the Banks Peninsula, Canterbury we have began working with the Qualmark benchmark programme to continue our work to become recognized as an eco-friendly property.

We strive to create a property catering for different types of clientele, but with a level of sustainability & awareness that allows the opportunity for guests and staff to relax and enjoy a quality experience.

We fully acknowledge that any business does impact on the wider natural and social environment in which we live and we aim to continue creating a location where that impact is minimized as much as practically possible.

Some of our current actions are:

• Monitoring energy consumption to identify any patterns of irregular usage.
• Electrical appliances are turned off when rooms not in use and security lights have sensors.
• Guests have the choice of heated towel rails to be turned on or remain off during their stay.
• Washing is line dried whenever possible. We ask cottage guests to do the same.
• We run on our own water system relying largely on rain water. Our water consumption is monitored daily.
• The cottages are self contained. No cottages have dishwashers.
• Management and staff always try to reduce waste and we recycle all the property's cardboard, bottles, and plastic.