Corporate Social Responsibility | The Castle Hotel in Windsor

Every little change we make helps us to play our part in a more sustainable future for everyone. We understand how everyday operations at The Castle Hotel can impact the local community and we take the responsibility to mitigate that impact very seriously.

Our vision for 2024 and beyond is to maintain our Green Tourism Gold accreditation. As we take further steps along this journey, we will continually look to improve, make sustainable choices and embed sustainable practices across everything we do and the way that every person in our team thinks.

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ENVIRONMENTAL COMMITMENT

Work diligently to measure and minimise our waste and conserve natural resources, particularly through energy and water conservation.
Partner with Greenview who monitor our energy and water use and calculate our waste, our energy usage per bedroom and per guest to set specific energy saving targets.
Reduce use of pollutants and harmful chemicals. We ensure all of our cleaning materials are eco-friendly.
Make a commitment to measure and reduce our carbon footprint working with the Hotel Carbon Measurement Initiative to calculate the carbon footprint of hotel stays and meetings at our hotels.
Consider the opinions of our guests and employees when examining our environmental programmes and procedures, and to actively encourage feedback from our stakeholders.
Identify areas for improvement and innovation at each hotel and support the efforts of our onsite green teams.
Value the cultural heritage of our hotels, allowing us to give our guests an authentically local experience.
Sign the Tourism Declares Climate Emergency declaration to show our shared commitment to unite all stakeholders in transforming tourism to deliver effective climate action.
Encourage our guests and our team members to travel sustainably and enjoy the bio-diverse areas we are located close to.

SOCIAL AND CULTURAL COMMITMENT

One of our core values is to put our hotel at the heart of the local community, creating initiatives that nurture and take care of our teams whilst also supporting the local businesses and community around us. These include:

Providing a safe and secure working environment for our teams and offering them the support they need to work effectively. This includes:
- Enhanced team benefits for maternity/paternity leave, contributions towards leisure passes, food bundles and free hotel breaks.
- Support for the equal treatment and rights of people.
- Hiring team members without any discrimination on the grounds of age, race, gender, religion, disability or status.
- Access to training courses with extensive opportunities to develop.
A commitment to actively engage with the local community by supporting local events such as the Santa dash and pancake race in Windsor. And, through our support of local charities such as Thames Hospice.
A continued drive to source products locally, wherever possible and to ensure all suppliers have their own green and ethical procurement policy.
A dedicated green, social and charity team to drive forward and communicate all new initiatives.

Sourcing locally

Our menus are crammed full of quality ingredients produced by suppliers based locally to Royal Windsor and Berkshire. Our responsible sourcing makes a significant reduction to our carbon footprint and contributes back into our local community and regional economy. It also means our seasonal dishes are bursting with quality flavours which adds to the overall dining experience. Take for example Darvilles of Windsor tea, a local family-run business since 1860 that also supply Windsor Castle with tea too. Beer is delivered from Windsor & Eton Brewery located in the very centre on Windsor.

We recognise there is a growing need to provide plant-based and vegetarian options on our menu to help guests stick to a healthier lifestyle and lower our impact on the planet. You will find Leaf has various delicious vegan, vegetarian and gluten free options for you to dine on.

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Giving back with your feedback

Feedback about your visit means everything to us. It helps us to know what we are doing right and learn from any mistakes we may make. And, every time you give us feedback (good or constructive) either via an online site or by direct email to us, then we will plant a tree with our partner More Trees and support their tree planting and community programmes in North Haiti, East Kenya and Madagascar. It is a little way of us continuing to make small steps towards a greater change for our planet.

With guest experience, community and sustainability such a key part of everything we do, our give back for feedback initiative combines all three elements seamlessly together. Ask a member of the team about this initiative during your next stay or head to a review site now to leave a review.

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Green Tourism

To promote a greener, cleaner environment for people, places and our planets we are involved with the Green Tourism Accreditation programme and are pleased to have recently been awarded the gold award for our work. The Green Tourism programme is acknowledged worldwide as an indicator of a good environmentally friendly practice and we are proud to hold Gold Green Tourism award at The Castle Hotel.

Green Tourism Focuses on:

Reducing energy use.
Saving water.
Efficient and eco-friendly waste disposal.
Ethical buying.
Staying local and seasonal.
Minimising food miles.
Promoting biodiversity.
Adopting a smart, sustainable outlook from top to bottom.
Helping to conserve local heritage.

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Three for two offer at The Castle Hotel Windsor

COMMUNITY SUPPORT

The Castle Hotel plays a pivotal part in the local community. We are key partners to the local tourism board Royal Windsor & Maidenhead Borough who drive visitors into our local region and we are proud to support and partner with local attractions such as the Theatre Royal, Windsor.

Charity SUPPORT

We support a number of local charities with their events. For the past two years our local charity of the year has been Alexander Devine Children’s Hospice where we organised a number of initiatives such as joining their annual Christmas Santa dash and hosting the Alexander Devine annual charity dinner. Our new charity for 2024 will be Thames Hospice and the team are looking forward to supporting them this year.

How you can play your part

You can help us and play your part on our journey. Here are some ideas of how, including suggestions for low-carbon-impacting activities during your stay:

Where feasible, travel to the hotel by train or local bus. We are just a short walk from both Windsor Riverside and Windsor & Eton train stations which connect quickly to London mainline stations.
If you are hiring a car, choose electric, you can charge at our EV charging point.
Travel around the local area on two wheels. We have a couple of bikes at the hotel which are available to hire at £40 per bike per day. Speak to the team about booking these for local bike tours.
Separate your waste. We provide bins that made it easier to separate waste so that we can recycle anything paper, glass or plastic.
Enjoy our local region and explore new areas. There a number of wonderful walks close by along the River Thames or surround yourself by royalty by a walk down the famous Long Walk or through Windsor’s Great Park.
Dine with us and enjoy our locally sourced produce. cannot wait to welcome you.

This policy is designed to act as a framework to enable all stakeholders to use as guidance across all general hotel operations. Stakeholders include both internal and external team members as well as hotel guests (where applicable).

Ask a member of our team if you have any questions on our “green” journey or ,to give us feedback about any of our green initiatives or ideas that you might have, simply click here to share it with us.

Let us know if you have suggestions of areas where we can improve to ensure that we both meet and exceed your expectations. Or, complete our feedback form by clicking here.

Our sustainability journey Looking after you, the community and the environment