Blenheim Palace maintains gold standard for sustainable tourism

Blenheim Palace has once again been recognised as one of the UK’s greenest tourist attractions after retaining its Gold status from Green Tourism for the eleventh year running.

The Green Tourism certification is an independent accreditation that recognises tourism businesses for their sustainability efforts and commitment to reducing environmental impact.

To achieve gold status, the UNESCO World Heritage Site was assessed over 15 different categories, including energy saving, waste minimisation, health and wellbeing, biodiversity, carbon, awareness, and community; achieving a total score of 89% – up from 83% when it was last assessed in 2023.

Blenheim Palace scored 100% in both the Health and Wellbeing and Community categories, demonstrating its commitment to ensuring the safety and wellbeing of its staff, volunteers and visitors, as well as its dedication to supporting the local community. The Palace was highly commended for its wide-ranging initiatives, which includes community projects such as litter picking and providing land for a community orchard, as well as offering staff wellbeing activities such as tree planting and no-dig gardening.

Britain’s Greatest Palace has long been focused on sustainable and regenerative tourism and pledged to become carbon neutral on scopes 1-3 of the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) protocol across all operations by 2027. From transitioning its entire vehicle fleet to electric – cutting transport-related emissions by 20% – to successfully phasing out single-use cups across all cafes and events, preventing over 100,000 cups entering landfill, Blenheim Palace has set the standard for environmentally responsible, heritage tourism.

Heather Carter, Managing Director, Blenheim Palace Visitor Attraction, said: “We’re thrilled to have retained the Gold Award from Green Tourism. The award recognises best practice under three categories: People, Place and Planet. It means that, across all aspects of the business, Blenheim achieves the highest standards of sustainability and has a strong and broad environmental ethos. Increasing our score from 83% to 89% is a testament to the hard work and commitment of our team who have all worked tirelessly to help us achieve this award.” 

Visitors to Blenheim Palace are encouraged to boost their own green credentials by receiving a 20% discount on tickets when travelling by bus, train, bike or EV. They can also contribute to the estate’s sustainability efforts by purchasing a tree when booking tickets – a scheme that resulted in approximately 5,000 trees being planted last year alone.

For more information about Blenheim Palace’s green credentials, please visit www.blenheimpalace.com/sustainability/.