Change — Reducing Our Impact on the Environment

Paula IrwinDecoy Country Cottages

How we can help with climate change…

I attended the recent CHANGE seminar in Dublin which was highlighting the need for all sectors in industry to think of ways to reduce their carbon footprint.

This is difficult for the tourism industry as all tourism involves an element of travel.

We, in the industry need to think of ways of encouraging people to invest more in staycations.

The discover Ireland campaign is helping with this, but it is difficult to get around Ireland, when outside Dublin, unless you have a car.

In order to make a difference to tourists, we need an integrated public transport system which allows the tourists to travel where they want to go.

There is no easy answer to this as a huge investment will be needed to achieve this but I don’t think there is another solution.

We at Decoy Country Cottages, are doing our bit for climate change.

We do not use any fossil fuels to heat our self catering holiday homes; we use geothermal heating technology which heats the houses and the hot water.

All the houses are insulated to a very high standard, and our water is treated and purified on site and we have solar panels in place reducing our reliance on electricity.