Hollyhock’s Green Best Practices & Policy

Hollyhock's Green Best Practices
Hollyhock's Green Policy

Becoming more ecologically sustainable in our practices is important to us, and we greatly appreciate every action you can take to assist us. We welcome your comments and suggestions on our feedback form. If you are interested in supporting one of our “green dream” projects, contact Operations Director, David Drysdale at david@hollyhock.ca.

Special thanks to Social Venture Institute participants who have raised funds for several greening projects, from solar panels to preheat hot water for the Beach House Cottage and our hot tubs, to LED lighting.

Hollyhock’s Green Best Practices

Community Impact

What We Do:
•    Hiring locally is a priority. We are the single largest employer on Cortes.
•    Support community organizations and schools.
•    Provide a rideshare board on our website to help reduce vehicle traffic on local ferries.
•    Offer a number of scholarships, as well as discounts, for Island residents.
•    Host evening events open to the community.

What You Can Do:
•    Support the Hollyhock Scholarship Fund.
•    Use our Rideshare Board.
•    Participate in a carbon emissions off-setting program.

Energy & Water Conservation

 What We Do:
•    Solar panels for preheating water for the Lodge, Beach Cottage and Hot Tubs .
•    Use compact florescent light bulbs.
•    Install water saver heads in most bathrooms, and low consumption toilet tanks.
•    Use drip irrigation in our garden.
•    Change linens at the end of each guest’s stay.

Hollyhock is minimizing water use and discharge at our Cortes Island campus. One project, as part of this initiative, is the installation of a Conservepump™ system, an easy to use comprehensive water recycling solution to reduce water use. This system allows Hollyhock to recycle grey water generated by showers in both Carousel dorm rooms, 7 and 8, to flush the toilets in both of these rooms. Ron Hartman, CEO Idus Controls, who invented and manufactures the Conservepump™, has donated a system that's both environmentally friendly and economical to assist Hollyhock at meeting one of our sustainability objectives. Find out more here.

What You Can Do:
•    Turn off lights when not in use.
•    Take short showers; turn off the water while washing.
•    Flush only when necessary.
•    Turn off the water when you brush your teeth.
•    Enjoy the ocean and lake swimming.
 
Food and Garden
 
What We Do:
•    Use organic foods: 100% of our grains, yogurt and tofu; fruits & vegetables vary with season.
•    Minimize, as much as possible, the distance food travels to reach our kitchen.
•    Grow organic vegetables, fruits, herbs, edible flowers.
•    Contract local farmers to grow specific crops for us.
•    Compost food scraps and napkins.

What You Can Do:
•    Close the gates when entering or leaving the garden to keep out deer.
•    Compost food waste, napkins, tea herbs and bags.

Waste Management

 What We Do:
•    Reuse paper whenever possible.
•    Recycle all glass, plastic, tin and paper.
•    Maintain a wastewater management system that treats all grey water and human effluent in a 4-stage process that uses natural purification methods.
•    Compost food waste, napkins, tea herbs and bags in our new compost facility. 

What You Can Do:
•    Refill your water bottle.
•    Flush ONLY toilet paper and human waste.
•    Use eco-friendly toiletry products.
•    Deposit recyclables in the bins on the garden deck.
•    Pack off Cortes Island what you packed in, especially toxic disposable items such as batteries.

What We Use Everyday

•    Organic teas and organic fair-trade coffee.
•    Organic foods: 100% of our grains, yogurt and tofu; fruits & vegetables vary with season.
•    Non-old growth, 80% post-consumer recycled office paper.
•    100% recycled toilet tissue, paper towel and tissue.
•    Biodegradable soaps and eco-friendly cleaning products.

Hollyhock’s Green Policy

Our Commitment
Hollyhock is committed to ecological practices that maintain and restore the health of natural ecosystems, local economies and the well being of our staff and guests. We make efforts to step evermore lightly on the earth and to increase the ecological sustainability of our operations.

We are committed to reducing the burdens we place on living systems and are making continual progress towards ecological sustainability (a “closed loop system” of cyclical material flow) and are committed to achieve this goal within a generation. Using our power as consumers to buy ecologically responsible products, we hope to support other progressive businesses and help create markets for alternative, green products.

We hope that by embodying the principles of sustainability we can encourage creative dialogue on how to reduce human impact on the natural environment as well as develop and demonstrate model systems. We also endeavour to expand the community of people who understand the functioning of natural systems and our impact on them by being a living example and through educational programming.

Hollyhock is committed to ensuring the well being of our staff and guests as well as teaching and promoting holistic living and personal well being as key elements of sustainability.

Hollyhock recognizes aboriginal land rights and title and supports First Nations in their efforts to obtain decision-making power within their traditional territories.

As Part of our plan to ensure ecological sustainability Hollyhock is committed to:

•     Reducing and making continual progress toward eliminating the consumption of and/or release of any substance that may cause environmental damage to the air, water, and the earth or its inhabitants. As such we use natural materials wherever possible with priority given to products that are made from reused or recycled materials.
•     Reducing and working toward the elimination of waste through source reduction and recycling. As part of this commitment we compost all of our organic food wastes on site. We support Cortes Island Recycling Centre in its efforts and guidelines for commercial users, while working to prepare all materials coming off our property for proper recycling, or when absolutely necessary, for other disposal means. We re-use numerous items and work to have items we are no longer using, become available for inexpensive purchase or give-away to staff or neighbours.
•     Providing our staff and guests with healthy food, locally and organically grown whenever possible. Our menus are primarily vegetarian with the additions of local seafood and wild fish that do not come from threatened populations. Hollyhock strives to ensure that none of our purchases support industrial food production: factory farming, salmon farming, genetic engineering, and the use of synthetic chemicals. We are making continual progress to growing and purchasing organic food. We do not use synthetic or chemical fertilizers in our gardens.  We use companion planting, mulches and hand weeding, rotation plantings, green manure cropping, drip irrigation, local compost and natural soil amendments, and avoid growing crops which simply can’t thrive in our gardens naturally.
•     Water conservation and ensuring that we do not pollute any water source or water body.
•     Protecting biodiversity and ensuring that we maintain or restore old growth characteristics, structure and function of our wild forest on site.
•     Eliminating the purchase of wood or paper products that come from old growth forests and purchasing products that are certified by the Forest Stewardship Council and /or come from ecologically responsible logging that supports local and indigenous communities. Whenever possible, Hollyhock uses Cortes Island wood, harvested from sustainability managed woodlots.  We also seek out recycled products with high post-consumer content and paper products made from ecologically responsible alternative fibres such as agricultural waste paper or organic hemp.
•     Conserving energy and making every effort to increase energy efficiency. We endeavour to introduce renewable energy sources wherever possible.
•     Reducing use of fossil fuels as much as possible through promotion of our on-line rideshare board and through encouraging our guests to participate in carbon emissions off-setting programs.
•     Auditing and evaluating our progress toward sustainability. We are dedicated to creating an atmosphere that encourages staff, guests and friends to question the status quo, be creative, take risks and find value and joy in exploring new paths toward sustainability.