Sustainability at Kabn

While we are proud of the progress we have made, we recognise that perfection is an ongoing journey. We are constantly striving to refine and enhance our regeneration efforts while ensuring our guests enjoy an exceptional experience. As we grow, we acknowledge that there's always room for improvement. Below, we have outlined some areas where we are actively working to evolve and do even better.

Firewood: we provide our guests with the highest quality kiln dried birch. We use this wood as it is easy for guests to light (to improve the guest experience for those not so familiar with wood burning stoves) and it provides one of the best kilowatt outputs, resulting in less wood being required to heat the space. Being kiln dried has the added improvement of providing a cleaner, hotter and more consistent burn than other firewood. The wood is PEFC and FSC certified, however we do order this from a supplier as this type of firewood is not available on the Estate. We encourage guests to use wood sparingly and to treat lighting a fire as a luxury. However, we do believe it is an important part of the experience. Our innate fascination with fire traces back to its transformative role in human history. It brought light to darkness, warmth to cold and safety from danger. At Kabn, we honour this primal connection. Fire is not only our primary source of heat but also the heart of our kitchen, fuelling the oven that transforms simple ingredients into culinary delights. Just as it did for our ancestors, we believe fire nourishes both body and soul, fostering a sense of well-being and connection.

Gas: our hob and boiler are powered by gas. Despite being an incredibly efficient source of power we are cognitive that this is a fossil fuel and as such we encourage guests to be aware of their usage. We do not run any form of gas heating throughout the summer months and it is only on for limited periods in the winter as the wood burning stove acts as the main source of energy. 

Generator: from November through to February we have to run the generator for about 20 minutes a day to keep the rechargeable lithium ion batteries topped up. The low angle of the sun and the surrounding mountains mean that we simply do not get enough charge from solar. For the rest of the year, we run 100% off the solar panels.

Cleaning: we hire local cleaners who live very close by who arrive by car and take the laundry away from site to launder. Being off-grid and a small size means we have to sacrifice having onsite laundry and staff. We are constantly making iterations, from the type of eco-friendly cleaning products we use to how we purchase them and how they are stored (we try to bulk buy and refill where possible).

Beach Cleans: we encourage our guests to pick up any litter that they see washed up on the loch shore (which is connected to the Atlantic Ocean). This is a never ending battle and we are looking into ways we we can encourage guests to take a more active role in this.