Not long ago, Lübker Golf & Spar Resort was honored as Denmark’s Best Golf Course at the 2024 World Golf Awards and proudly hosted the Made in Denmark on the DP World Tour, exemplifying excellence in the world of golf.
I was pleased to learn that Lübker Golf has appointed a dedicated sustainability officer. Tina Mørch Nielsen is leading sustainability development at the Danish golf resort, a significant step toward sustainable operations.
Drawing from my positive experience at Bernardus Golf, I reached out to Tina to explore their best practices and successful initiatives in sustainable golf club management.
How much do you intend to invest to make Lübker Golf & Spa Resort sustainable?
We know that sustainability is not a finished recipe, and therefore, we allow ourselves to become wiser every day.
We believe that reaching absolute sustainability is very hard, if not impossible.
The best we can do is to act on what we know – from data-driven insight, new knowledge, and innovations, and practical experience.
This means that our sustainable roadmap must be dynamic and consider these three dimensions.
In terms of sustainable investment, we do not have a final number. Since we lack a larger investor behind our golf resort, we have a humble yet ambitious sustainability strategy.
Our approach to sustainability is to seek out the absolute sweet spots: The solutions that rate high on both planetary and financial impact.
As an example, this entails investing in the electrification of the machine park.
The sweet spot:
Our power is generated by green energy; the lifecycle assessment of the robots today shows significantly better performance on all five planetary boundaries compared to diesel-driven mowers, and our calculations indicate that we will achieve substantial savings on fuel, maintenance, and man-hours.
The reason we do not simply convert all our machines at once is not only a matter of a healthy financial foundation.
We are also facing an essential question right now in terms of quality and guest expectations:
Is the world of golf ready to meet a different (and greener) generation of championship courses?
It is a question that we actively seek to discuss with our fellow colleagues and competitors, and we periodically take the temperature among our club members.
What steps will you take to reduce the carbon footprint associated with travel and in general?
Transportation
We have increased the number of charging stations for electric vehicles around the resort over the past couple of years.
Our visitors can use an electric car with peace of mind as their means of transportation to and from our resort, as they will be sure to find a charger available.
100% of the power is covered by wind energy.
General
Our climate goals entail two main initiatives. These were prioritised as a result of a double materiality assessment inspired by the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD):
- Electrification of the machine park;
- More plant food in our restaurants.
Our climate accounting for the baseline year 2023 revealed the CO2 emissions for the entire golf resort, encompassing scope 3: administration, transportation, shop, courses, restaurants, accommodation, and the spa.
Interestingly enough, the highest CO2 footprint was not from greenkeeping, but rather from the amount of meat served in our restaurants.
We could not ignore the fact that serving a steak at the clubhouse emits twice as much CO2 as one round of golf.
We have educated our kitchen staff to add delicious, low-impact courses to our menus, where plants take the leading role.
We do not wish to take away our guests’ freedom of choice when it comes to food. Yet, we will continue to inspire people to consume less meat.
Do you plan to become a GEO Certified golf resort?
We have considered the GEO Certification and welcome any initiative aimed at establishing common standards for sustainability in the golf industry.
Yet, for starters, we have not found the GEO certification material to be a significant factor in our progress.
Instead, we have taken a point of departure in the EU’s standards (ESRS) and its subject measuring points.
We have just begun our sustainable journey, and we recognise that sharing knowledge across the industry, both locally and internationally, is essential for this common global cause.
To start, we focus our energy on our prioritized impact goals and finding the right solutions through collaboration with experts and other golf clubs in our existing networks.
We also hope that our new membership in European Tour Destinations will provide a platform for discussions about the sustainable future of golf.
Which sustainability solution at your resort are you most proud of?
As the sustainability manager, I am most proud of Lübker Golf’s engagement with biodiversity. Protecting endangered species is both meaningful and a challenging task, unless biologists are involved.
The common spade-foot toads have always been there, breeding on the edges of the pond, hiding in the sandy grounds.
Robert Trent Jones Jr. planned our golf courses with respect for our protected areas and their unique flora and fauna. Yet, nature continues to evolve and change.
That is why we have initiated a large nature project for the fall of 2025, aimed at improving the breeding and living grounds of rare amphibians around our ponds.
Luckily, we have been granted partial funding from nature funds for the project.
What technological solutions do you use to reach your sustainability goals?
For our climate goal ’Electrification of the machine park’, we have been testing different types and brands of robots for our fairways, semi-fairways, driving range, and other green areas.
No size fits all, and the right technological solution is crucial for our unique area.
Our courses are spread over a larger area than most, hidden within beautiful forests, which poses a challenge for the GPS signal.
You will find numerous idyllic ponds and small hills for the robot to navigate. Yet, we are getting closer to finding the right fit.
Water consumption is a relevant topic for many golf clubs. Luckily for us, Lübker Golf Course was designed with a built-in circular watering system.
When the golf courses absorb rainwater, several drains direct it to our 2-3 technical lakes, which are connected to our watering system.
For this reason, we can reuse the water and avoid using precious and expensive groundwater.
An area that we have yet to formalize a goal around is the reduction of chemicals.
In Denmark, the allowed amount of pesticides and fungicides is already very low, and there are strict regulations on which types of chemicals can be applied to golf courses.
Our head greenkeeper is experimenting with different grass types and mixes that require no chemicals and work well on our grounds. For now, this is an experiment at our Academy Course.