By Isle of Wight Observer
Visit Isle of Wight’s sustainable travel team is celebrating following a year of success in promoting a greener way to get around the Island. The Green Star scheme originally launched in 2016, with the aim of encouraging businesses to look at how they promote sustainable travel on the Isle of Wight, either through using buses, walking, cycling or introducing electric car charging points at their premises.
Nicola Rogers, sustainable travel project manager said it has been very encouraging: ‘It’s been a great year, 2019 saw the relaunch of the new Green Star scheme with its new structure of bronze silver and gold. We’ve had more than a hundred businesses across the Island sign up to the scheme, which is great. The vast majority of those are either gold or silver status, so that just shows that people are finding it very valuable and it’s an important factor for them to make sure that they are continuing to be eco-friendly and promote sustainable transport.’
Farringford Estate at Freshwater recently achieved the gold level in the Green Star scheme. Sophie Adkins, marketing manager at Farringford Estate said: ‘When we were approached about the Green Star award and I read through the criteria we had actually achieved nearly all of the criteria and were working towards it. You’ll be surprised at how much you’re doing already!’
The Visit Isle of Wight key card scheme is run in conjunction with Green Star accommodation providers and local bus company Southern Vectis, encouraging visitors to choose public transport instead of using a car, cutting carbon emissions on the Island.
Constant promotion of the key card scheme over the spring and summer months saw the team pick up a silver award in the UK Bus Awards in November in the marketing initiative of the year category.
More businesses are being encouraged to take part in the scheme in 2020. Contact Visit Isle of Wight on info@visitwight.org.
