DISCOVERING GREENER TRAVEL

If sustainable tourism is important to you then you will be pleased to know the Great West Way is the perfect option for a more environmentally responsible holiday. Plan your Great West Way adventure with a carbon friendly footprint in mind, from the way you travel to the places you visit on the way.

Help achieve a cleaner, safer and healthier world for us, our families and future generations by staying in eco-friendly locations and visiting eco-conscious venues with award-winning green practices along the route. Offset your environmental footprint by leaving the car at home, hiring an electric bike or perhaps taking a cruise on a horse drawn trip along the Kennet and Avon Canal instead.

Dine in a restaurant with Michelin Green Star status and enjoy a night under the stars wild glamping in an eco-friendly shepherds hut or stay in a cosy carbon neutral farm cottage with countryside views.

Hotels are now striving to reduce emissions and become more sustainable, from achieving zero food waste and removing single-use plastics from guest rooms to winning sustainability awards. Plus, there are a wealth of eco-friendly destinations, attractions and restaurants along the route to discover, not to mention greener ways to get there. It is now easier than ever to plan your journey more eco-consciously. So, for a travel experience that not only leaves you feeling fulfilled but has a positive impact on the planet, we hope you enjoy our selection of outstanding sustainable businesses along the Great West Way.

Ways to travel sustainably

Perhaps one of the biggest impacts on our plant is the way we choose to get from A to B. Many hotels and accommodation providers have electric-car charging points if you are travelling by electric car. Alternatively, you might decide to plan your entire journey using public transport.

The Kennet Horse Boat Company horse drawn boat along the Kennet & Avon Canal

Getting about by bike, foot, boat and train is made easy on the Great West Way thanks to the Great Western Railway, the River Thames, the Kennet and Avon Canal, and a magnitude of foot and cycle paths. Arrive at any of the Great West Way’s cities by train, and wander on foot to explore at your own speed, or hire a bike for the day to whizz around town seeing all the sights.

In Bristol, you can even hop on a bicycle-for-two with Bristol Tandem Hire. If you fancy taking a cycle ride between some of the cities on the Great West Way, the 13-mile Railway Path between Bristol and Bath offers a flat, easy ride away from the roads.

The Great Western Railway runs throughout the touring route, stopping at cities like Bristol, Bath and London, as well as some of the area’s major towns including Reading, Windsor and Swindon. There are also convenient rail links to nearby cities Salisbury and Gloucester, which are just off the Great West Way. You can use our Great West Way Discoverer pass for unlimited off-peak train and bus travel to make life even easier, with options from £139 for a seven-day pass.

Bristol Airport has also been recently recognised for its sustainability efforts, winning the Eco-Innovation Award for the easyJet low emissions initiative – a step towards becoming one of the UK's most sustainable airports.

And you can’t get much greener than travelling by horsedrawn boat! The Kennet Horse Boat Company operate from Easter to the end of September, and you can just hop on when they have spare seats – or book a barge by charter.

At the east side of the route you can enjoy a delightful electric boat cruise along the River Thames with Pure Boating. Surrounded by abundant beautiful unspoilt scenery and natural beauty, their fully electric fleet is perfect for spotting the occasional kingfisher or heron, without a noisy, smelly petrol or diesel engine.

Pure Boating's fully electric fleet

Buses are another way to help ease congestion and improve air quality. Just one double decker bus has the potential to take 75 cars off the road. Go South Coast have three fully electric zero emission vehicles collecting visitors from Salisbury Park and Ride sites. Plus, there are multiple coach services between London and Bristol by companies including National Express, Megabus, Stagecoach and Eurolines.

You could take in the route on a private coach tour, from the royal sights of Windsor to the charming villages of the Cotswolds – many of these depart from central London. You’ll also find coach connections to other cities and towns along the touring route from London Victoria, including Marlow, Reading, Swindon, Chippenham, Bath and more.

Towns, villages and cities

Destinations along the route are improving their shopping high streets and popular visitor districts in innovative environmentally conscious ways.

Henley have just hosted their Big Green Week event for local businesses to promote their sustainable products – and in an effort towards becoming 100% Net Zero the towns park vehicles are moving across to a greener fuel source of hydrotreated vegetable oil. They are offering sustainability advice for market stallholders and recently hosted a seminar on green tactics at the local Town Hall.

In the Royal Borough of Windsor & Maidenhead they are reducing the need for carbon intensive travel by encouraging walking and cycling, investing in digital infrastructure, protecting and enhancing their natural environment and aiming to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050.

Marlborough have encouraged businesses in the town, including Bunces, The Parade Cinema and Slate Hill Charcoal, to sign a ‘Business Green Pledge’ to switch to cleaner products, to collect rainwater for using on plants, promote the use of biochar as a carbon negative soil improver, and offer discounts for customers bringing bottles and growlers (big refillable flasks) in for refills.

Local producers are stocked on the high street, hotels and restaurants in Malmesbury, and green adventures at the internationally famous Westonbirt Arboretum are close by. With its beautiful ancient hilltop town surrounded by picturesque rivers and countryside visitors are reminded of the benefits and importance of a greener more sustainable way of living.

In Calne you will see many perennials planted to bring more biodiversity to the town. The National Cycle Network passes through Calne and the centre will soon have bike chargers accessible to visitors.

Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol

As you travel through the cities of the Great West Way, you will discover all kinds of exciting eco initiatives too. Bristol is often regarded as the 'greenest' city in the UK, having been the first city in the UK to win the 'European Green Capital' award in 2015, as well as being named the UK's first official Cycling City. Here you will find a thriving sustainability movement, from zero-refill shops to electric scooters for hire, and local awardwinning pie company Pieminister's ‘eat pies, plant trees’ scheme.

Just down the road in Bath, a clean-air zone has recently been introduced to reduce fumes and emissions in the city. Bath was built on England’s only natural thermal springs, and if you visit Thermae Bath Spa or Gainsborough Bath Spa you can enjoy these naturally heated waters for yourself – lovely and warm without the need for any non-renewables to heat them.

Attractions and museums

If you’re a lover of nature, you’ll be keen to discover some of the conservation charities and nature reserves along the Great West Way which are working hard to protect biodiversity and wildlife.

While many of the Great West Way’s nature reserves are found in the quiet of the countryside, our cities have some surprising offers. WWT London Wetland Centre on the west of London is a huge awardwinning nature reserve.

Providing safe haven from wildlife of all kins – birds, bats, amphibians and more – London’s first large-scale, man-made, inner city wetland reserve is well worth a visit.

At the other end of the touring route, visit the University Of Bristol Botanic Garden to see their huge variety of cultivated plants; the five-acre site is home to around 4,500 plant species.

The Great West Way has its fair share of ecofriendly farms too, which you could argue have had a head start on most when it comes to adapting to be more socially and environmentally aware.

The Farm at Avebury produce more energy than they consume, including their holiday lets, from their solar panels and they don’t use any fossil fuels for heating thanks to air source heat pumps. On the farm, they work with The Small Robot Company who are at the forefront of agricultural sustainability, increasing productivity whilst protecting soil health, water quality and biodiversity – and over the last 10 years they have planted thousands of trees. They sell their produce locally and to guests, with all their food being grown within one mile of the farm.

Rams at The Farm at Avebury, Beckhampton

Visit Roves Farm in Swindon and you will see their sheep and hens grazing the grass beneath solar farm panels – accounting for almost 40% of their electricity required to run their 400-acre estate. Plus, they use wood chip biomass boilers heating the visitor centre during the colder months.

They produce all of their own beef, lamb and pork on the farm, including supplying their café with handmade sausages, beef burgers and mince.

Within their Farm Shop, meat is prepared and sold in their own Butchery, and they also offer ‘Roves Refills’, a zerowaste pantry with pasta, beans, pulses, nuts, oil, fruit, grains, seeds, chocolate and sweets all without unnecessary packaging – you simply bring your own containers from home (or buy reusable ones from the shop).

Fresh whole and semi-skimmed milk can be dispensed from the ‘Moo Station’ straight into glass bottles or cartons brought from home, reducing single use plastic whilst also supporting local dairy farmers.

Major attractions along the route are doing their bit as well. Blenheim is leading the way with a ‘Gold’ Green Tourism award rating the palace within the top 5% greenest attractions in the UK. Stonehenge has launched a new fleet of green shuttle buses to take visitors to see the stones, and the visitor centre is not connected to a mains water supply; instead, water is drawn from a borehole. The land around the visitor centre and stone circle is maintained as chalk grassland meaning it is not improved with products such as fertilisers but instead cut and cleared once a year. They are maximising recycling with zero waste going to landfill.

In the Stonehenge gift shop they stock products made and sourced locally including honey from Salisbury Plain, wine from Lyme Bay and a Christmas card range using cornstarch biodegradable bags and sustainably sourced board and envelopes.

The Roman Baths and Pump Room are working on an innovative scheme to harvest heat from the naturally hot spa water to use it to heat their buildings. Sixteen three-metrelong energy exchange blades have been inserted into the King’s Bath, and a new plant room is being created beneath the street. The idea is that heat from the King’s Spring will be used to heat the Roman Baths and Pump Room, as well as the new Bath World Heritage Centre and Roman Baths Clore Learning Centre.

The historic landscapes of Hampton Court Palace and Kensington Palace support a wide range of wildlife communities and projects to conserve biodiversity at the royal palaces, and where possible they have created new habitats or enhance existing ones to encourage local wildlife to flourish.

The Bombay Sapphire Distillery in Hampshire was awarded the prestigious BREEAM Award for Industrial Design in 2014 – they have a biomass boiler providing heat and hot water using local, sustainably sourced wood chips as a fuel source and a hydroelectric turbine in the River Test, giving carbon savings of 38% and providing renewable and low carbon energy.

SS Great Britain, Bristol have reduced their energy consumption of the pioneering conservation system which protects the ship’s fragile iron hull by 25% – part of their commitment to become carbon neutral in our operations by 2030. Also in Bristol, The Wave inland surf destination use solar thermal panels to pre-heat their water and have plans to plant 16,000 trees and 13 acres of wildflower meadowland, while Avon Valley Adventure & Wildlife Park have 265 solar panels placed on their roof generating 90% of their power, and they are working with Great Western Recycling Ltd which means they have zero waste to landfill.

The Wave, Bristol

The Wave inland surf destination use solar thermal panels to pre-heat their water and have plans to plant 16,000 trees...

The Museum of English Rural Life and Reading Museum are launching a new campaign called 'Our Green Stories' which draws on the collections of both museums highlighting and engaging visitors and local people with environmental issues.

Chippenham Museum has been engaging people around issues of climate change through an exhibition display exploring the local landscape through imagery and a series of interviews with the local community about their climate concerns.

At the Jane Austen Museum, Bath they have switched to LED lights throughout the building, use a fully renewable electricity provider and have plans for solar panels on their roof and at Maidenhead Heritage Museum they have just started to stock a range of eco-friendly, sustainable products from Wild & Stone in their shop.

Roman Baths, The Sacred Spring

The REME Museum are creating a wildflower and sensory garden in their grounds, designed to keep environmental impacts to a minimum. The wildflowers are species commonly found in Wiltshire, while the vegetables grown in the allotment will be used by the museum’s café.

And although you can’t visit the factory, the Great West Way is proud to be home to the Birchall Tea Factory – the only wholly solar-powered tea factory in the UK and the first tea company in the world to be entirely Carbon Neutral. Located in Amesbury, the factory generates more electricity than they use with 460 rooftop solar panels. Discover their award-winning Great Rift Breakfast Tea stocked in a number of restaurants and cafes along the Great West Way route.

Eco-friendly hotels and restaurants

Many hotels along the Great West Way route are now ecocertified, achieved by performing zero food waste, using biodegradable packaging, and focusing on local produce.

There are too many to mention them all, but in Bath they include the DoubleTree by Hilton, Apex City of Bath Hotel, and The Royal Crescent Hotel and Spa. There are at least five in Bristol to include The Bristol Hotel, Radisson Blu Hotel, Hilton Garden Inn, DoubleTree by Hilton, and Hampton by Hilton in Bristol. There's also the DoubleTree by Hilton in Swindon, Homestay Reading and many more.

Pioneering in the sustainability is Whatley Manor in Malmesbury. They have recently been awarded a Silver accreditation by EarthCheck and were amongst the first 23 UK properties to be awarded a Green Michelin Star recognising sustainable gastronomy.

The Dining Room at Whatley Manor

These awards have not been without hard work from the dedicated team, whose best practices include sourcing organic beef from their farmer next door; coffee ground logs for their indoor fires; building a Bird Hide from upcycled materials sited by the river; employing a zero-use policy of single-use plastics in guest rooms; having a paperless account office, and reducing their fresh flower points replacing them with rooted plants.

Kitchen Garden at Whatley Manor Hotel

Danesfield House Hotel & Spa have employed a ‘green team’ to help the business move towards sustainability, climate change measures and efforts to save the planet. Measures include LED lighting and only running their garden water features at the weekends.

And small changes are making a significant difference at Wiltshire Inn’s, The Swan Hotel, Bradford on Avon and The Old Bell, Warminster. As well as recycling with no waste going to landfill they have invested in their own water bottling system for still and sparkling water in reusable glass bottles in the bedrooms. They recycle coffee beans into coffee logs to be used on log fires, have ‘one cup kettles’ to produce instant hot water on demand and encourage their guests to explore the local attractions by bicycle or on foot by providing information on walks, cycle routes and cycle hire at reception.

We all know that in catering there can be a huge amount of waste, but many of the restaurants on the Great West Way are achieving zero food waste going into landfill.

Festive treats

Vaughan’s Kitchen in Devises is one example. They even use ‘vegware’ packaging made from plants – a system saves around a tonne of waste which would otherwise be going to landfill each month.

The Great West Way is proud to have three restaurants with Michelin Green Star status – an award designed to recognise restaurants offering dining experiences combining culinary excellence with outstanding eco-friendly commitments: Oak Restaurant, Bath; The Dining Room at Whatley Manor, Malmesbury; and Wilsons, Bristol.

There are just 31 restaurants across England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland awarded a new Green Star award in total. Just a short detour from the route: Heckfield Place, Hampshire; Belmond Le Manoir aux Quat Saisons, Great Milton; and Petersham Nurseries Café, Richmond, have also made it onto the Green Star list.

There are many other eco-certified restaurants along the route, perhaps on their way to the prestigious Green Star award, some of our favourites include: Wilding, Salisbury; Pythouse Kitchen Garden, Tisbury; Honest Burgers in Windsor, Reading and Bristol; and The Elder Restaurant, Bath.