Eco friendly holidays at Nethway Farm in Devon

When you arrive at Nethway Farm Holiday Cottages you quickly understand why the environment is so important to us. We are immersed in nature, so feel it’s our responsibility to look after it by offering eco friendly holidays here in Devon.

Sustainable accommodation means so much more to us than providing recycling facilities for our guests. That’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Here’s 10 ways we are working to champion environmentally friendly breaks in the South Hams and reduce our carbon footprint.

1. Wood log burners

We know how wonderful it can be to cosy up around a log burner at the end of a busy day exploring. It’s also a natural way to provide extra warmth while cutting back on electricity.

All five of our cottages come with log burners and free wood from fallen trees on the farm. So there’s zero road miles involved in adding another log to the fire.

2. Sustainable water supply

The water supplied to Nethway Farm Holiday Cottages comes from our own borehole, so is chemical free and tastes amazing! You’ll also see water butts around the farm, The collected rain water is used to water our plants.

3. Eco friendly cleaning products

The departure of every set of guests triggers our meticulous cleaning routine using a variety of eco friendly products made in the UK.

This includes Bio-D® washing up liquid, which is biodegradable, packaged in 100% UK recycled material, is Vegan friendly and made from naturally derived ingredients.

We also use EcoEgg washing machine balls. These are a greener laundry solution, cutting down on single use plastics and chemicals in every wash.

4. Fewer plastics

Speaking of reducing the use of disposable plastics, we only use refillable soap products in our holiday cottages.

5. Zero to landfill

Recycling at home has been the norm for a long time now and we know our eco conscious guests want to continue while on holiday. This is why we provide clearly marked bins so recyclables and general waste can be easily split up. Our waste is Collected by Devon Contract Waste who have a Zero to Landfill Policy.

6. Supporting local

For us, providing eco friendly holidays also means supporting local businesses. Whenever possible we use local suppliers and all our welcome packs come with products produced around us in Devon.

We also love to point our guests to the best places to shop and have a number of local businesses who deliver meat, deli goodies and wine to our cottages.

Buying local doesn’t stop at food and drink. We actively support local organisations such as the Brixham Archers, Firscroft Honey Bees and the wider agricultural community.

And you don’t need to travel far to enjoy the local area – we have loads of recommendations for wonderful things to do close to Nethway Farm.

7. Growing our own

We produce our own food for guests and the local community. Our chicken and duck eggs make for the best breakfasts and cakes! We are also able to supply home reared lamb, pork and goat meat.

8. Solar power

Something we benefit from here in South Devon is plenty of sunshine – we get an average of seven hours of sun each day in the summer months.

We put this natural power source to good use with solar panels on the roof of our swimming pool and one of our barns to help reduce our use of mains electricity. Plus the majority of our outside lights are solar powered.

9. Conserving energy

It would make no sense to generate our own energy if we weren’t also working to conserve it. That’s why all of our cottages have been refitted with a double layer of high quality insulation to reduce heat loss.

Inside you’ll find them fitted with low voltage lighting and thermostatically controlled radiators. And we help you save fuel before you even arrive by providing all the essentials you need for your holiday, including basic equipment and toys for babies and young children.

10 Encouraging wildlife

We are part of DEFRA’s Countryside Stewardship Mid Tier scheme. This means we actively encourage a wide range of fauna and flora by providing varied undisturbed habitats on the farm.

We do this by growing wild flowers, berry and seed bearing plants and trees, which also make Nethway Farm a lovely place to holiday.

Bees are among our wild residents. We have eight hives at the top of our valley field and will be adding honey to our farm grown produce very soon.

Eco friendly holidays into the future

There’s always more we can do to reduce our carbon footprint. Next up we’re adding EV charging points so guests with electric cars can fast charge while they are staying with us (we already offer trickle charging).

In the next few years we aim to add to our solar panels and put battery banks in our cottages to store the energy produced, so watch this space!

If you want to holiday without the environment taking a hit we hope you’ll join us for an eco friendly break.

Check availability at Nethway Farm.