Our people, animals and environment are an integral and fundamental part of Folly Farm.
We recognise that we need to sustainably balance environmental, social and economic factors in equal harmony to interact with our planet responsibly. We are invested in ensuring we’re able to meet our present needs whilst also meeting the needs of future generations.
We remain environmentally conscious, and as a company look to be innovative and forward thinking. We re-invest heavily every year and constantly evaluate our systems and practices to ensure they are current, relevant and best practice to our industry.
This drive for self-improvement is what makes us a credible tourist attraction. One which promotes sustainability and seeks long term success. We understand that our activities have an impact on the environment in terms of use of raw materials, emissions to air and water and waste generation, and therefore we seek to minimise this as far as reasonably practicable.
Our Green Team meets regularly to talk about ways we can make a difference. This is sometimes about saving energy, sometimes about recycling, and sometimes about how we can help our community.
We’re proud holders of the Green Key environmental accreditation. The eco-accreditation promotes sustainable tourism and guides businesses towards best environmental practices. We adhere to National and International Green Key criteria that have been designed to be easily understood by visitors, feasible for the tourism industry, and can be clearly verified through control checks. Green Key accreditation not only recognises our commitment to being environmentally responsible, it provides our visitors with the confidence they’re visiting a sustainable tourist attraction.
Read more about Green Key.
We’ve invested £700,000 in a biomass heating system using wood chip that is 100% renewable. It heats our fairground, Carousel Woods indoor play area, Jolly Barn, the Hungry Farmer restaurant and Tropical Trails exhibit, as well as our gift shop and staff offices. It also supplies our hot water. The system saves 700 tonnes of carbon emissions annually. A second biomass system has been built to service our holiday park too. So, when you stay with us you be sure that the heating and hot water is sustainable too.
We’ve invested £250,000 in solar panels on our funfair roof to make our own electricity using the power of the sun. This means we’re generating all the electricity needed to run Folly Farm without having to use the power supply for our local area. We even power our sustainable electric go-karts using the electricity generated through these panels!
We’ve also invested in “eco” hand dryers for the toilets and hand washing areas across the park. These environmentally friendly dryers not only use less electricity but they reduce waste from the use of paper towels. We also went one step further and fitted auto-sensors on all the lights in our toilet blocks so they turn off when they’re not in use.
We use a lot of light bulbs in our vintage fairground – a whopping 10,000. So, it seemed obvious to replace them all with low energy versions – saving 70% of the energy needed.
We’ve got our own willow plantation because this is what our giraffes in particular, and many of our other animals, like to munch on. Now we’re self-sufficient and we don’t have to have to have it delivered which means fewer vehicles on the road and we’re making good use of our land. Best of all when the giraffes have finished eating all the leaves and even the bark (it’s a great dental workout for them!), we chip what remains and re-use it for bedding for our animals. How about that for a no-waste regime?!
We also use left over willow to make dead hedges.
We have miles of hedgerow and small areas of woodland which stores carbon and is a home to many species of Welsh wildlife. Alongside meadow restoration projects, are working to increase carbon storage and improve connectivity for wildlife by planting new hedgerows and filling gaps where we can.
We’re also proud to have acted as a distribution hub for the Welsh Government, Woodland Trust and Llais Y Goedwig ‘My Tree, Our Forest’ initiative which gave away tens of thousands of trees for local tree planting.
As custodians of around 250 acres of pure Pembrokeshire countryside, this provides us with a real opportunity to make a difference to our landscape and native wildlife that call it home. We are working to increase the opportunities that our land offers to wildlife in many different forms.
We were awarded runner up in BIAZA’s Great British Wildlife Restoration Awards, for our ‘Hafod yr Adar’ swift conservation tower project voted for by MPs.
We’ve switched to The Good Cup, saving 1 tonne of plastic waste from the plastic lids on the 250,000 coffee cups we use each year.
Plastic lids can take 200 years to fully biodegrade. The Good Cup can be disposed in compost bins and will biodegrade within 6-12 months.
The Good Cup is good for the planet!
Yes that’s right, poop! We’ve got a lot of it so when we clean out our animal enclosures, we collect it and spread it on our land to grow the willow and other vegetation for our animals. It goes full-circle. And it allows us to talk about poop and that’s memorable!
We’ve even donated our rhino poop to the National Botanic Gardens of Wales to help fertilise exotic plants in its Tropical Dome!
We’re delighted to have joined Pembrokeshire Nature Partnership to help conserve our local landscape and implement nature recovery plans. Read more about Pembrokeshire Nature Partnership.
We’re passionate about preventing extinction so take part in breeding and education programmes and fundraise to protect animals in the wild.
Our local community are our visitors, our team and our friends. We must be a responsible and sustainable business for them.