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GREEN PLACES

The Green Business Tourism Scheme

The Venus mission is to be the greenest beach cafe and shop operator. We will strive to minimise the harmful effects and maximise the beneficial influences which our activities have on the environment.

We are delighted to announce that Venus won the Gold Award in the SW Tourism Excellence Awards 2008 in the Sustainable Tourism Category.   This award recognises the best of the best in the SW Region and we hope to be representing the region at the National Finals in 2009.

Venus has won a number of county, national and international awards.  The ultimate was the Queen's Award for Enterprise Sustainable Development in 2005.   Only one of eight companies throughout the UK to have been awarded a sustainability honour in 2005.   Venus is also a multiple Gold award winner in the South Hams Green Tourism Business Scheme, overall winner in the Devon Environmental Business Initiative in 2003. Venus was an award winner in the national Business Commitment to the Environment awards in 2004.

Also in 2005 Venus was honoured to receive the 'Best in a Marine Environment' award at the prestigous Responsible Tourism Awards at the World Travel Market.   This outstanding award demonstrates how the Venus mission and goals are being recognised in an international sphere.

The Venus Company is a member of the Green Tourism Business scheme which provides green accreditation for tourism businesses.  Businesses are encouraged to help reduce the environmental impact of tourism for the enjoyment of future generations. Membership is a commitment to good environmental practice in business activities. We will ensure that we comply with environmental law and our legal Duty of Care requirements for waste disposal. Venus has successfully achieved Gold standard on 10 separate occassions.   For more information on this excellent national grading programme please check out www.green-business.co.uk .

As part of our ongoing environmental commitment at The Venus Company we have implemented many measures including:

  • Reducing our overall packaging through packaging specifications with our suppliers.  Returning cardboard, cans, plastic packaging, glass and used cooking oil for recycling.
  • Installing energy efficient solutions including solar panels
  • Using chlorine, toxic and phosphate free based cleaning products 
  • Undertaking regular litter picking in our immediate environment
  • Spending over £300,000 on local food & drink from the immediate area around our cafes and using local businesses for other goods & services
  • Purchasing products grown/reared under organic & free range standards to encourage the reduction in the use of harmful intensive farming techniques
  • Setting up a central distribution system which combines with a staff transport programme & saves over 800 miles every week.
  • Setting environmental specifications on our packaging to ensure it's production is not harmful to the world's environment
  • Developing unique and novel packaging solutions with the aim of making all Venus packaging 100% compostable

THE VENUS BEACH WILDLIFE FUND

Venus has teamed up with the Devon & Cornwall Wildlife Trusts to establish The Venus Beach Wildlife Fund.   The programme will run for an initial 5 years and will develop educational materials and programmes to educate beach visitors on how to enjoy the beach without doing damage to the environment.     Venus will raise over £30,000 from a 5p contribution from each cup of tea and flake sold over the next 5 years to support the programme.   The Wildlife Trusts will initiate and action management plans for each beach and take programmes into local primary schools to improve the knowledge levels of our future generations.   In 2008, we provided environmental awareness education to nearly 150 local primary school children.

SUPPORT GREEN LANES

The Venus Company has raised over £30,000 for the South Hams 'On The Right Tracks' programme that will help conserve the area's historic green lanes. Green lanes are unsurfaced, deep, steep sided tracks that offer 'an away from it all' atmosphere. Most of them are very old and many have interesting histories as packhorse tracks or even smugglers' lanes.

The money raised through the scheme helped to clear and maintain these unique green lanes and sets South Hams up with one of the finest, and most accessible, networks of green lanes and paths of their kind in Britain.

SUPPORT RECYCLING

We are currently in the throes of examining how we can come up with a better solution for recycling at our cafes.   While we separate and recycle boxes, cooking oil & glass bottles when we receive products at our back door which we can recycle ourselves through our central distribution centre, we are not allowed to use Council recycling or recycling centres for any waste streams from the general public.   It has proved almost impossible to find a commercial operator to travel the distance to service our recycling needs at the cafes.   While we continue to look for a sustainable solution, you can help to keep the beach clean by taking your rubbish with you and recycling it at home. THANK YOU.