We’re really proud of our physical property, built with sustainability intention. We’re even more proud of our team, a collective of warm, inclusive, and caring members. We constantly review our core values, ensuring we provide an authentic experience for our guests while fostering a creative and energetic environment for our associates.
We continue to explore and adopt more sustainable practices to enhance our guest experience and ensure our operation is treading as lightly as possible on our environment.
Parkside Hotel & Spa is committed to supporting a sustainable lifestyle and helping to achieve the 17 Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations 2030 Agenda (17 SDGs).
Who We Are
Two out of our three core values connect directly to our sustainability and carbon neutral initiatives … Sustainable Zeal and Embrace the Ethos.
What We Do
Each year we commit to auditing our carbon footprint to maintain our carbon neutral status. View our current and past years here.
We continuously work towards the 17 UN Sustainable Goals, see our current progress here.
How We Grow
We're all about community, and proud to sponsor events with a sustainability impact. Learn more here.
We’re proud of the work we have done, focusing on our environmental impact, and we strive to always do more. We wear our certifications like badges of honour.
We’re led by a general manager who not only “walks the walk” in sustainability practices, she “talks the talk,” teaching the theory of sustainability at Royal Roads University. As a carbon neutral hotel, it is our goal to raise awareness and positive change.
Here are some ways to reduce your carbon footprint while visiting Victoria, BC.
Hosting a meeting or conference at The Parkside? Make a difference by:
* We acknowledge and respect the ləkʷəŋən peoples on whose traditional territory The Parkside Hotel & Spa stands and the Songhees, Esquimalt and W̱ SÁNEĆ peoples whose historical relationships with the land continue to this day.
The hotel opened in 2009 with a focus on environmental actions and in 2021, the hotel started the steps to reconciliation with the Songhees Nation. The Parkside Hotel & Spa is the first hotel in Greater Victoria to sign a Memorandum of Reconciliation (MOR), becoming Friends of the Songhees.
We are proud to be the exclusive Victoria hotel partner with the Songhees Nation, visit Explore Songhees to book tours.
Every organization should have a Sustainability Team. Reach out to Trina & Katie, who head up ours, with any questions.
With soooo many buzz words surrounding 'carbon neutrality' here are a few helpful answers to FAQs.
An organization, event, product or service is successfully Carbon Neutral when it can claim net zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. This means all significant GHG emissions produced by the business, event, product or service are balanced out by removing or preventing an equivalent amount of emissions from entering the atmosphere.
5% of all global emissions are from the Tourism and Hospitality industry.
The Parkside Hotel & Spa relies on the selling the pristine, natural environment, fresh air, and clean water of Greater Victoria and Vancouver Island as a whole.
It is important across the entire sector that we work towards reducing our carbon footprint, to ensure we have a vibrant tourism and hospitality industry well into the future.
A carbon offset is a greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction that is used to counterbalance, or offset, a GHG emission. They are sometimes also referred to as carbon credits, VERs, or CERs.
A carbon offset occurs when an individual or organization emits a given amount of GHG emissions but invests in measures that remove the equivalent volume of GHG emissions from the atmosphere or prevent the emissions from taking place at all. Carbon offsets are a financial instrument that represents this reduction (counterbalance or offset) in GHG emissions.
At The Parkside Hotel & Spa, we take sustainability seriously; in fact, we are a carbon neutral and Five Green Key rated hotel. Our Climate Contribution program consists of a small fee of $1.25 per night that goes towards three amazing, forward-thinking initiatives with Offsetters. We encourage our guests to read about these amazing Offsetters initiatives that we support here.
This fee is optional and should you choose to "opt out", please inform us at check in.
Visit this link to calculate emissions. https://ostromclimate.com/calculate-emissions/
David Suzuki shares how, here. https://davidsuzuki.org/what-you-can-do/four-places-cut-carbon/
