Abbey Hill Golf Centre, a Burhill Golf and Leisure (BGL) venue in Milton Keynes has successfully achieved GEO Certified status for another 3 years.
Tony Hanson, a GEO accredited Independent Verifier, commented in the report:
The management at Abbey Hill Golf Centre has continued the process of improving environmental management with diverse projects including habitat creation, wildflower meadows, open water ecology management, LED lighting installation and plans for a new reservoir to improve water resilience.
Sustainability trends in 2020
Let’s see what we can do more for the sake of sustainability either as golfers and golf club managers.
I am expecting these will be among the sustainability trends in 2020:
- Sustainable foods (aka product transparency) – People will want to know much more about where their food comes from. It means that it will not be enough to highlight for instance the food is gluten-free, vegan, halal, etc. They also expect clean labeling: the use of simple, recognizable and wholesome ingredients free from a multitude of flavorings, preservatives, sugars, and GMO based products.
- We will continue to eliminate or at least bring to a very low level of plastic usage. Currently, 83% of the world’s drinking water is containing plastic fibers (in Europe: 72%, in the US: 94%).
- Are we golfers ready to slow fashion? Do we really need to change our golf apparel so frequently? Fast fashion has created a culture of disposable clothing where very little is recycled and most ends up in landfills — 92 million tons of solid waste dumped in landfills each year.
- The shift toward reusability. We are already offering lake balls and pre-owned golf balls. I would consider promoting buying used golf clubs. Golfers could offer their used golf clubs for beginners or their golf club’s golf academy to help those who cannot buy brand new clubs. Have you heard of Golfbidder? We cannot afford to neglect that people are becoming more conscious shoppers, especially the Millennials.