As well as joining the Scottish Tourist Board we are joining the Green Tourism Business Scheme for our newly built Roe Deer Cottage.   As part of our commitment to going green we have taken steps to improve our attitude to what we buy and how we live.   Here are a few of the measures we have taken at present and will continue to improve on.

• When we removed our garage to make room for the cottage our neighbour used the door and roof trusses to make his new garage.
• We buy organic/Fair-trade products for the use of the cottage and ourselves.      
• We try to shop locally to source our requirements.
• We try to buy or use recycled products.  We use recycled paper for all our correspondence with matching recycled envelopes and use both sides of the paper for printing. We recycle our ink cartridges & use recycled cartridges for the printer.  Our outside signs and bench are made from recycled plastic.
• We use energy saving Light bulbs in our homes.  Our house and the cottage have  Better Plan Electricity through Scottish Hydro, for every unit we use they will put a unit of cleaner hydro electricity into the national grid, also if we manage to reduce our energy consumption by 20% in a year we receive a cash credit up to  £25 and we can monitor our energy consumption by using the Better Plan monitor linked to our homes.
• We recycle food waste by using our compost bins and in winter our cows enjoy the vegetable waste!
• We recycle cardboard, glass, paper, tins & cans. At present we are unable to recycle plastic as we do not have this facility.
• We try to walk as much as possible locally instead of taking the car.
• We turn off the lights and Stand By lights when they are not required.
• We have thermostats on all of our radiators and our heating system is on a timer.
• We try to buy wooden furniture etc that is FSC approved.
• We use environmentally friendly cleaning products like Ecover and microfibre products.

When planning for our cottage, we decided to provide all the necessities for the stay by putting in a tea tray containing (Fair-trade) coffee, tea, hot chocolate, herbal teas, home made biscuits for guest arrival. 

Other items which are provided are salt & pepper,  Local chocolates, Bio- degradable bin liners, composting, recycling facilities, Ecover cleaning & washing products, hand soaps and bubble bath from the Highland soap co., Ecover shower & hair shampoo, Organic cotton wool, cotton buds, recycled toilet paper kitchen roll & tissues.

‘A’ rated appliances are used where possible and guests are encouraged only
to use the dishwasher when full and are encouraged to use the drying facilities instead of the tumble dryer.  Due to our location, the local transport up-to-date info is also provided in cottage.