1 week Ago
Birchwood Park Golf & Country Club won the Sustainability Project of the Year award at the England Golf Awards last week. Having been a GEO-certified club since 2013, the Dartford club have continuously championed initiatives that enhance biodiversity, improve resource efficiency and reduce their environmental footprint. The club’s recent work with the Woodland Trust has restored 1.
2 hectares of woodland, planting a diverse mix of native trees that provide vital habitats for birds, insects and small mammals while actively sequestering carbon to support the UK’s net-zero targets. The club have also achieved zero waste to landfill, increasing recycling rates by 35 per cent and working with suppliers to enhance packaging recyclability while educating staff on waste segregation, while a water management system has been pioneered to capture and redirect car park run-off for irrigation, significantly reducing reliance on potable water while preventing pollutants from entering local waterways. Steven Norton, general manager at Birchwood, said: “We’re really proud as this is a great achievement and testament for all the hard work the team have put in.
“Our biggest achievements have been our waste management, in recycling as much as we possibly can, working with the Woodland Trust in creating more natural woodland on the golf course and then also the water management by utilising the water that runs off our car park and our roof space to irrigate the golf course and not have to rely on mains water. “Our efforts were never about the award. It was about doing the right thing for the right reasons and so applying for the award became an afterthought once we realised how much we’d done and how much effort had gone in from our team and members, so it’s really about being able to acknowledge and recognise everything we’ve done.
“We are currently installing solar energy to power the clubhouse itself and then also some smaller efforts to continue some of the building blocks that will produce big results in the end. More clubs should look at becoming more sustainable as resources become more and more scarce, specifically sand and also for water, and we've got a responsibility to look after it for the future.”.
