At a time of increasing awareness and concern for the environment, consumers are left wondering what the consequences of their choices are.

You’ve probably heard that we’ve begun to integrate the UN Sustainable Development Goals into our operations across the Aldenham Estate, where Home Farm Glamping sits. Goal #12 (out of 17) concerns ‘responsible consumption and production,’ with an emphasis on natural resources use and waste generation. As a small, boutique glamping site, where guests come for the simple pleasures of relaxing under canvas in the countryside, it seems obvious that a holiday with us is a more sustainable and resource-light minibreak. But just how sustainable is glamping really?

To find out, our deputy site manager Courtney has crunched some numbers, and worked out the carbon footprint of a 3 night stay with us at Home Farm Glamping compared to a 3 night trip to Barcelona. You’ll be surprised by what we found…

Let’s start with the travel…

The difference here is absolutely GIGANTIC! A return flight from a London airport to Barcelona emits a whopping 350kg of CO2. Then there’s a further 10kg added for a return transfer from the airport to Barcelona’s city centre (not to mention your travel to/from the London airport).

By comparison, a return train journey from Kings Cross to Elstree and Borehamwood produces just 1.54kg of CO2 (per passenger), or 5.2kg if you’re coming by car. All in all, traveling to Barcelona produces over 227 times more CO2 compared to traveling to Home Farm!

How about accommodation?

CO2 emissions for an average hotel range from 5-15 TONNES of CO2 per bedroom per year. For a three night stay, that’s a carbon footprint between 40kg and 120kg just for your hotel room. The air conditioning alone emits 11.4kg, and then there’s amenities like TV, hairdryers, kettle, mini-bar fridges; plus all the lighting… it’s easy to see how the numbers add up.

In one of our bell tents or yurts, our return-to-nature ethos means there’s no need for electricity at all. The lighting in and around your tents run on either solar panels or rechargeable batteries. We don’t quite expect our guests to go fully off grid (literally), so our barn is hooked up to the mains to power out kitchen appliances, with appliances such as our communal hot water urn generating about 1.5kg of CO2 per person over three days. One of our largest and non-essential emitters comes from burning logs at the firepits at each tent, which amounts to 9kg of carbon over the course of your stay. The logs for the fire pits are from trees that have fallen on the estate, and the charcoal for our BBQs is sustainability sourced by Forestry Fuels. All of this adds up to around 10.5kg COe - a whole kilogram less than an air conditioning unit in a large hotel alone.

Finally, we took a look at meals and activities…

Eating out in a city like Barcelona, assuming you’re dining out for 3 meals per day, will add up to 96kg carbon per person. Visiting a museum is more or less carbon neutral, but even activities like a 2-hour wine tasting excursion contributes 1.2kg of carbon into the atmosphere. While European cities usually have great public transport links, taxis between your hotel and various locations can add about 40kg COe to your holiday all on its own.

We have tried to take the hard work out of planning a stay to Home Farm by building relationships with suppliers who run activities at the site, as well as having a variety of things to do all within walking distance of the site. This includes visiting the Aldenham Country Park, exploring our woodlands, going up to Pages Farm to visit the alpacas, or doing yoga on the lawn will contribute to no CO2 emissions - even if you do them all! While guests have the option of dining at a local pub or ordering a take away to the site, the majority of our guests want to use our Weber BBQs and self-cater during their stay. Over the course of three days, you’d use approximately 26kg of carbon and hope you’d consider using our composting system to discard waste food.

So where does that leave us in total? Drum roll please!

The Barcelona breakdown:

Flights = 350kg

Accomodation = 40-120kg

Activities and meals = 137.2kg

For a total carbon footprint of 527.2 - 607.2kg per person

The Home Farm Glamping breakdown:

Travel = 1.54 - 5.2kg

Accomodation = 10.5kg

Activities and meals = 26kg

For a total carbon footprint of 38.04 - 41.7kg per person

That’s right. A European mini-break generates around 15 times more carbon than a glamping staycation.

We think we can do better than this, and are on a journey to lower emissions on site

While a stay at Home Farm Glamping is certainly more sustainable than traveling abroad, we’ve pinpointed a few key areas where we can improve our sustainability credentials and decrease the impact we have.

Some of the key areas we’re going to be focusing on over the next couple of years are:

Finding an alternative to the generator we need to use to power the showers (this for us is a top priority, and one we’re hoping to resolve by 2023)
Managing the food waste left by guests onsite
Creating more educational content about the nature and wildlife on the Aldenham Estate grounds
Hosting more eco-focused events for the local community
Reducing water waste on site
Finding a greener alternatives to our laundry process

We’ll be sharing details of our sustainability journey on our social media channels and via our newsletter.

Peace of mind

As if it weren’t enough to skip all the airport chaos, avoid all the long and tedious journeys and waiting times, and being able soak up all the incredibly Mediterranean weather Home Farm is experiencing anyway; all of you environmentally conscious travellers have one more fantastic reason to skip the continent and come glamping instead: Preventing more than half a tonne of CO2 emissions! That’s as many as 26 trees that you won’t have to plant, while you lounge in a camping chair drinking gin & tonic instead…

What's the carbon footprint of a glamping staycation? The Home Farm team investigates...