We're quietly pleased to share that The Headland has been awarded EarthCheck Silver certification for a second consecutive year. 

What it actually means

EarthCheck isn't a sticker you buy. It's a science-backed benchmarking programme more than thirty years in the making and recognised by the Global Sustainable Tourism Council. It measures how a place genuinely performs across the things that matter: energy, water, waste, carbon and the way a business looks after its people and its patch of the world.

You hand over the real numbers. They're assessed, independently, against benchmarks for hotels like ours. This year's assessment was carried out by Control Union against the EarthCheck Company Standard, and we came through it with our Silver status intact.

The part we're most fond of is that it takes in the whole of The Headland, not just the bit with the bedrooms. The 86 rooms, yes but also the 39 cottages along the cliff, the spa, the two restaurants and the AquaClub with its six pools. All of it counted, all of it measured. No quietly overlooking the tricky corners.

Second year in, and counting

Silver is where the EarthCheck path begins. The levels climb from there, up through Gold, Platinum and beyond, earned over years rather than granted overnight.

We're two years in, which means there's a good deal of road ahead. That suits us rather well. The kind of change worth making tends to happen slowly, one honest improvement at a time: a better way to heat the pools, a smarter answer to where our waste goes, a supplier a little closer to home.

None of it changes what a stay here feels like — the grand old building, the sea filling every window, the pasty eaten on the wall with the wind doing its level best to take it. It simply means we can carry on enjoying all of that and doing right by the headland that gave us our name.

Here's to the next year. And, in time, to a shinier shade of certificate.

Our Sustainability Lead

"A building like ours doesn't make any of this easy, it's Victorian, it's large and it sits in one of the wilder spots in Cornwall," says Bethany Branigan, Sustainability Lead.

What EarthCheck gives us is real numbers to work from, so we can see where we're doing well and where we can make further progress.

Holding Silver a second year tells us the changes we've made are genuine and it gives us a platform to improve on.

It is a real team effort here, the changes in process and everyone embracing our journey are what have enabled us to retain silver status.”