The Eco Château
Why an Eco Château? Well, why not? Here at La Coutère, we believe that water and energy are the most precious of our Earth’s resources and we want to do everything we can to ensure we use as little of these as we can.
At Château de la Coutère we try to live by our core principles. We are serious about living in a sustainable way and therefore minimising our impact on the environment.
Water Conservation
Groundwater levels are the lowest they have been worldwide for 30 years and this affects the wildlife that depends on it, especially around our rivers and wetlands. Drought is a problem in many parts of the world and can affect us here in France too, where increasing water consumption can put a strain on water resources. Water conservation is important everywhere, but especially important in warmer climates and the south of France can be hot and dry for up to six months of the year.
Water Independence and Rainwater Harvesting
At the château, we have three independent wells on the estate, which allow us to water our gardens and potager without using mains water. The majority of the château has now been renovated, so one of our next projects is to build rainwater harvesting systems, starting off with the large roof space of the outbuildings. Primarily we prefer to use our harvested rainwater for watering our crops and our animals on the farm, as it’s the cleanest source possible for our organic produce and permaculture regenerative farming.
Repurposing Greywater
Greywater is gently used wastewater that comes from sources such as our bathrooms, kitchen, and laundry rooms. It is usually relatively clean, apart from small particles that would need to be filtered out before it can be repurposed. We have started to make this possible in a couple of different ways.
- The handwashing water from the downstairs cloakroom is collected and re-used to water the chapel rose garden.
- The greywater from The Cherry suite is collected and used to water the flower beds at the side of the château.
- The water from the kitchen sink and dishwasher is collected and used to water the fruit trees and flower beds at the front of the château.
- Our laundry facilities in our outbuildings provide repurposed greywater to water some of our orchard trees.
Reduce Energy Consumption
Luckily winters are short here in the south of France. We heat the château with both a pellet stove and a wood burning stove, with pellets being sourced locally. Our wood burning stove is extremely efficient and we require just a few cubic metres of wood to see us through each winter. We harvest this from mainly fallen wood and coppiced wood on our estate. This grows back in time for us to coppice it again when we need it in the years to come.
Minimal Food Miles
Grow Better Than Organic Food and Support Local Producers
We have grown our own fruit and vegetables organically for the past 25 years and one of the main reasons we chose to buy the château and its estate, was to enable us to grow our own food. In addition, France is the only European country that is food independent, and we love that we can source any additional fresh produce that we need from local farmers and artisans and the local markets are full of fresh produce throughout the season.
Minimal Waste
To implement a minimum waste strategy, for the past few years we have try to minimise our waste output, by striving to stick with following the ‘waste hierarchy’. Otherwise known as the three Rs of sustainability, we believe this can be expanded to no less than seven Rs – Reduce, Reuse, Repair, Repurpose, Rot, Recycle and Rethink.
