Environmentally-Friendly Weddings On Ærø Island In Denmark
Sustainable, local, green, carbon-neutral weddings – that’s something we aspire to and something that we think is important to our couples too. We are well placed to reduce the footprint of our business, and living and working on Ærø gives us a head start. The island already produces more electricity than it uses, thanks to wind turbines. It has a world-leading all-electric ferry between Søby and Fynshav (towards Germany) and the busses are free, and soon to be electric too. It has an extremely good recycling centre for all our waste. The heating in the towns comes from central installations which generate hot water from solar cells and straw burners, and then pump it out to the local houses. So being on Ærø already gives us a great start, but we know we can do more.
Recently “The Guide to Sustainable, Zero-Waste, Ethical Weddings” dropped into our inbox (see it here ) which got us thinking some more. In fact we found we were already well ahead of the game, thanks to our lovely local flowers and produce, and focusing on smaller, bespoke weddings, rather than the traditional huge bash with hundreds of guests, marquees etc. Anyone who has looked at our blog before will already have seen the emphasis on sustainable flowers and decorations, and will have noticed out biodegradable confetti which we make ourselves by drying hydrangea flowerheads. It all helps!
Our achilles heel is, of course, travel. Most of our couples and their guests have to travel to get here, and as we all know, air, road and sea travel is a big contributor to carbon emissions. The electric ferry helps, and so does the fact that we (and our couples) usually walk everywhere around Ærøskøbing. As a small business there is nothing much we can do to change international infrastructure, but what we are working on a system for carbon offsets. The idea is simple and well used by a number of businesses; calculate the carbon emissions from your journey, and then pay into a scheme (such as tree planting) which counter those emissions.
There are some excellent carbon offset firms who have numerous projects (not just tree planting – also things like procuring energy-efficient stoves for third world countries). We have been looking at this very good website – Myclimate. That would be one solution – and that may well be that way we go, giving our couples the opportunity to pay simply, into a carbon offset project to balance their travel emissions. But what we are really keen to do is have a carbon offset scheme right here on Ærø as well. It feels right for us and our couples to focus on our island, and there is a new tree-planting scheme which we hope to use for this purpose. Ideally, couples will be able to identify “their” trees. A big “plus” for us with doing the offset locally is that it will be more tangible, and feel less like a “greenwashing” gesture. We’ll tell you more about this carbon offset plan as soon as it is ready to go, and from next month we’ll be including a carbon offset option on our booking form.
In parallel Louise, (and her friend Maja), has set up a new initiative called “The Ærø Eksperiment” - A common difference together. It is a community project based on Ærø. It aims to create a platform where ordinary people can be motivated and learn how to be more sustainable in their daily lives. If we cut down on waste, how much will it reduce our CO2 footprint? How do we as individuals measure it? and how can we better organize ourselves by reducing, recycling and reusing daily waste from our homes and communities so that we can make a difference to the environment? These are some of the questions we hope that the Aeroe experiment will answer, and along the way motivate us to live more sustainable lives, and in turn help us transition into making a common difference together. Locals are already signed up to test the idea and we look forward to seeing how well it works, and if there are ways we can use the initiative in connection with the way we plan and do weddings.