Craignair Inn and Restaurant

This submission reflects this organization's contribution to the climate effort, representative of their current actions and commitments as well as the ways in which they intend to step up and collaborate with others.

Craignair Inn and Restaurant's Climate Action Contribution

About Craignair Inn and Restaurant's Climate Efforts

We are driven by a desire to do business in the most sustainable manner possible. We are committed to providing a warm and welcoming retreat for our guests and neighbors while also creating a “green” experience. We are incorporating new products and amenities that fall in line with green lodging best practices to ensure the health and safety of our guests and our environment. We hope to help preserve the natural beauty of midcoast Maine and our local Clark Island for future generations to visit and enjoy.

The Craignair Inn is committed to:

Valuing the natural beauty and history of St. George and Clark Island, and to help guests enjoy and appreciate a local, authentic experience;

Including environmental considerations as part of everything we do including, but not limited to providing amenities that are earth friendly and vegan (free from animal products), buying local to decrease our carbon footprint, and supporting the local community;

Striving to follow green lodging best practices in all areas of our business without compromising guest comfort;

Partnering with like-minded businesses and organizations to encourage a sense of “community”;
Bringing awareness to the changes impacting midcoast Maine’s natural resources;
Soliciting feedback and suggestions from our guests and community regarding the inn’s environmental practices;

Looking to the future to identify areas for environmental improvements in our green lodging practices and continuing to make improvements that promote conservation.

Green Lodging Practices in Place at the Craignair Inn & Restaurant by the Sea:
Individually controlled heat zones in all of our guestrooms
Use of 100% cotton sheets, towels and quilts
Use of elegant amenities in a dispenser system for showers that eliminates the need for hundreds of small bottles each year and partially used products
Electric vehicle charging station
Amenities use no animal by-products and do not use animals for testing
Purchase and use of energy efficient appliances
Using LED lights
Use of dimmable lights throughout common areas and guest rooms
Upcycle of furniture
Donation of old linens and towels for re-use at our local animal shelter
Old bathrobes and unclaimed guest clothing goes to local charities
Recycling centers in guestrooms and common areas
Housekeepers are trained to remove recyclable goods from rooms (i.e. newspapers, plastic bottles, soda cans)
Sharing of our mission to reduce and how guests can participate by re-using towels
Use of eco-friendly cleaning products
Purchase concentrated cleaning supplies in bulk and use refillable bottles

We are also in the process of getting solar panels to power the business and converting from oil to propane heating/hot water.

Climate Action Commitments

Current Climate Actions Craignair Inn and Restaurant Is Taking:

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Commit to Reduce Short-lived Climate Pollutant Emissions

Short-lived climate pollutants—such as black carbon, methane, tropospheric ozone, and hydrofluorocarbons—are powerful climate warmers many times more potent than CO2 over their lifetimes. Because they are short-lived in the atmosphere, actions to reduce these super pollutants can have substantial, near-term climate, agricultural and health benefits and are an essential complement to CO2 reduction strategies. Policy-makers can announce regulatory or voluntary approaches to drastically reduce SLCPs, such as developing methane strategies or adopting rules on use of warming HFCs. Organizations can commit to engage with suppliers to provide training, conduct pollutant inventories, and establish systems for tracking, measuring, and monitoring these types of emissions. Analysis shows that SLCP emissions can be cost-effectively reduced by an estimated 40-50 percent by 2030.

Policymakers, companies and organizations are encouraged to accept the #SLCPChallenge of the U.S. Climate Alliance, which calls for ambitious action on SLCPs. Feel free to elaborate on your work towards reduction, along with your other efforts, in the "Other Commitments" field below.

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Commit to Reduce Climate Impacts of Packaging and Reducing Waste

There are many ways to reduce the climate impact of packaging including reducing materials (i.e., “source reduction”); replacing virgin materials with post-consumer recycled content; replacing traditional plastics made from fossil fuels with biopolymers; re-designing packaging to be more compact and therefore efficient for transport and storage; using biodegradable packing materials; and recycling at end of the packaging’s life to name just a few practices.

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Commit to Responsible Engagement in Climate Policy

While individual organization action is necessary, local and federal government action is also needed to reach global climate goals. Your organization can have a critical voice in advancing public policy. A commitment to responsible engagement in climate policy means that your organization commits to supporting public policy to: promote energy efficiency and renewable energy; increase investment in a clean energy economy; support climate change adaptation, or put a price on carbon.

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Commit to Building Climate Resilience in your Community

By committing to adapt to the impacts of a changing climate, companies and institutions can secure their operations and supply chains and conserve natural resources that are stressed due to climate change. While there is much a business can do within their community, primary among these options is reducing water usage. Organizations can commit to increase their own water security through a range of actions, including installing water-saving devices, capturing rainwater for onsite uses, and recycling grey water. Or just commit to get engaged with your community in resilience planning.

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Commit to Reducing the Climate Impact of Your Transportation

Organizations making a commitment to reduce the climate impact of transportation should consider practices such as measuring transportation greenhouse gas emissions and setting reduction targets, switching fuels, optimizing the efficiency of shipping operations, and reducing transit- and travel-related greenhouse gas emissions. Businesses can develop a green transportation action plan to map the movement of goods to market and identify opportunities to increase efficiency. Organizations can buy hybrid and electric vehicles within their own fleet, and can reduce the footprint of their workforce through incentivizing public transportation, installing EV charging stations, promoting telework, and locating near transit centers.

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Commit to Increase Your Use of Renewable Power

Increasing your percentage of renewable energy sources is a key component of reducing overall GHG emissions. Installing onsite renewable generation, like solar panels, is a good long-term strategy if possible. But renewable energy can also be procured through Renewable Energy Credits (RECs), renewable power purchasing agreements (PPAs), and in some locations from retail electricity providers or local utilities that offers a high percentage of renewable power. Also consider becoming an EPA Green Power Partner.

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Commit to Increase Energy Efficiency

Most companies begin by assessing energy usage or performing an energy audit to identify opportunities to increase energy efficiency throughout their facilities and operations. Energy reduction targets can be framed as either absolute reductions or reductions that are normalized per unit of production, such as per tons shipped, per dollars of revenue produced, or other relevant business metric. Some examples of commitments that can be taken include:

  • Conducting an energy audit or request a meeting with your building owner to explore scheduling an audit
  • Upgrading HVAC system to a more efficient model
  • Upgrading lights in your office/facility to LEDs
  • Upgrading insulation and windows
  • Replacing appliances in your office with Energy Star-rated models
  • Instituting a company policy of turning off lights other electronics when not in use.
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Commit to Understand and Reduce Your Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Understanding your GHG emissions is the first step to making measurable reductions in those emissions. The EPA provides an overview report and CoolClimate Network provides a simple tool for “low emitters” to better understand sources of emissions, as well as how to use that information to set reduction targets. For this commitment, it is as simple as committing to complete a greenhouse gas inventory for your business or oganization, but in the future your inventory can be used to make a commitment to set a specific goal, such as “reduce GHG emissions by 50% by 2025.

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Integrate Climate Change into Portfolio Analyses and Decision-Making

Commit to integrate climate change-related risks and opportunities in portfolio analysis and decision-making processes through one or more of the following:

  • Analyzing and assessing climate change-related risks and opportunities (e.g. through carbon footprinting, scenario analysis).
  • Making commitments and setting targets (e.g. to carbon footprint reduction, to enhanced portfolio resilience, to decarbonization, including via the Portfolio Decarbonization Coalition).
  • Investing in low carbon investment funds and other products (e.g. low carbon indices, climate-aligned bonds).

Areas For Collaboration

We are interested in collaborating on the following:

Efficient Buildings
  • Encouraging more aggressive state energy efficiency policies
  • Improving efficiency in existing buildings through real estate transactions
  • Supporting building thermal decarbonization and electrification

Electric Vehicles
  • Aggregating demand for electric vehicles with other actors
  • Encouraging more aggressive state targets for electric vehicles and GHG standards
  • Promoting increased charging infrastructure

HFC Phase Down
  • Encouraging states to adopt policies to phase out HFCs on an accelerated timeline
  • Promoting greater participation in voluntary programs to phase out HFCs

Local Collaboration
  • Collaborate on climate and clean energy action, and to advocate for stronger climate policy at the local level

Methane
  • Enacting policies and programs that cut fugitive methane emissions from oil and gas production
  • Scaling initiatives to reduce methane from livestock and increase production of on-farm renewable energy
  • Supporting adoption of state-level policies to reduce methane from upstream and midstream oil and gas operations
  • Supporting implementation of methane leak detection technology and processes in aging infrastructure

Natural Lands
  • Developing in measurement and monitoring systems to target efforts and track progress
  • Encouraging states to adopt incentive programs for forest management, tree cover expansion, and soil health
  • Promoting science-based targets for GHG emissions and removals in agricultural supply chains

Utility Sector
  • Aggregating demand for renewable energy with other actors
  • Encouraging more aggressive state renewable energy policies
  • Supporting states, cities, and utilities in decarbonizing their energy supply

Organization details

22 room bed and breakfast with full service restaurant on the coast of Maine.
Sector
Business
Location
Spruce Head, ME
Twitter username
Secondary/Communications Email