C&TH’s Great British & Irish Hotel x Polestar Sustainable Hotel Of The Year Awards 2025
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2 weeks ago
Are you a leading hotel with sustainability at its heart? We want to award you.
This year, we’re excited to expand C&TH’s Great British & Irish Hotels x Polestar Sustainable Hotel of the Year Awards 2025 to honour and reward achievements that look beyond the whole.
Sustainable Hotel Of The Year Awards 2025
We will crown one hotel Sustainable Hotel of the Year from all the entries, but we also want to explore how sustainability plays across key pillars, including food, design, wellness, and the outdoors.
New For 2025:
- Best Local and Seasonally-inspired Restaurant
- Best Biodiversity or Garden Scheme for Nature
- Best Wild Wellness Experience – a spa that offers natural-based treatments or nature-based experiences such foraging, wild swimming etc
- Best Nature-conscious, Low-Impact Architecture or Design of Hotel
- Plus, Overall Sustainable Hotel of the Year
The application form provides a framework for our judges to assess what you are doing, how you are measuring it, and the impact you are having. Not being able to fully answer every question should not be a barrier to entry. We understand that small businesses may not have access to expensive carbon measurement systems, for example, but are nonetheless integrating sustainability into their DNA.
None of this matters, however, unless you are also offering an outstanding guest experience. From food to service, and design to culture, a great hotel must excel across multiple areas to keep guests returning.
We look forward to reading your entries. Good luck!
Our Sponsor
These awards are sponsored by Polestar, the Swedish automotive brand that creates electric performance cars. Polestar is known for its minimalist design, advanced technology, and commitment to sustainability.
Eligibility
Please check that you are eligible for the C&TH Great British & Irish Hotels x Polestar Sustainable Hotel of the Year Awards before applying:
- Your hotel/establishment is based in the UK or Ireland.
- Sustainability and regeneration form a demonstrably important part of your establishment’s business plan and guest experience. Information must be available on your website for visibility and transparency.
- You have both an environmental and a social programme that is measured and reported on.
- Your hotel is considered luxury, high-end, boutique, or unique.
Prizes
The winners will receive:
- A four-page feature in the July/August issue of Country & Town House, highlighting all winning establishments.
- A physical award to display in your reception area.
- A logo for use in marketing.
- Social and online support from C&TH, reaching approximately 1 million people each month.
- The opportunity to run an enhanced competition.
Entry Form
As we have expanded the awards, you are required to complete the first and second sections as fully as possible. You will then have the option to provide further details in specific categories: food, the outdoor environment, wellness, and design. You do not need to answer all sections, but if you wish to be considered for any of these awards, we recommend providing the most relevant information. The more detail and inspiration you can offer, the better!
Timings
- Final date for submission: 16 April 2025
- Judging to take place: 16 May 2025
- Publication date: 1 July 2025
Meet The Judges
Alongside Great British & Irish Hotels editor and The Telegraph’s leading hotel reviewer Fiona Duncan, we welcome:
Juliet Kinsman
Juliet Kinsman is a journalist, broadcaster, and sustainability expert. As Condé Nast Traveller’s first Sustainability Editor and founding editor of Mr & Mrs Smith, she now runs the non-profit consultancy Bouteco, which amplifies genuine sustainability stories. She is the author of The Green Edit: Travel and The Bucket List: Eco Experiences and frequently appears as a sustainability expert on BBC and Sky News.
Francisca Kellett
Francisca Kellett is an award-winning travel writer and editor. Formerly Travel Editor at Tatler and Digital Travel Editor at The Telegraph, she is now Travel Editor-at-Large for Country & Town House and writes for The Times, The Sunday Times, FT, and National Geographic Traveller. With a background in environmental and community advocacy, she is a leading voice in sustainable travel.
Petra Petterson
Petra Petterson joined Polestar as Inclusion Lead in 2021, helping to drive its vision on human rights, equality, and diversity within the company and its supply chain. A member of the Sustainability team, she has worked for over a decade on issues including circular consumption, supply chain ethics, and human rights at brands such as MQ, Hemtex, and KappAhl. Petra holds a Master of Advanced Textile Engineering.
Marian Boswall
A leading landscape architect and horticulturalist with a reputation for creating beautiful regenerative landscapes often in sensitive places, Marian Boswell is known for her thoughtful and contextual design approach. She works with the land, the people and local materials to discover and develop the special and the important in each project. From flood plain restoration to farmstead creation, respect for the ecology, the history and the future inform her thinking and the studio’s designs, which she leads at all stages.
Sarah Langford
After leaving her career as a criminal barrister, Sarah Langford became an author and farm (manager). Her first book, In Your Defence: Stories of Life and Law (2018), explored real-life legal cases and moral dilemmas. Rooted: Stories of Life, Land and a Farming Revolution (2022) marked her shift into the world of farming, transforming a conventional arable and pasture farm in Suffolk from conventional to organic methods. Now an advocate for regenerative farming reform, she writes and speaks on the future of sustainable agriculture (food, fashion and nature restoration) in Britain and beyond.
Lucy Cleland
As Editorial Director of Country & Town House, Lucy Cleland has been driving the company’s sustainability and social agenda, leading to its B Corp Accreditation in 2023. She has aligned all editorial guidelines with values of regeneration, sustainability, and equity, frequently discussing these topics in interviews and at industry events.
Fiona Duncan
A hotel critic for over 30 years, Fiona Duncan began her career as an editor and writer of travel guides before launching the Charming Small Hotel Guides series. She has reviewed hotels for The Telegraph since 1999 and currently edits Country & Town House’s annual Great British & Irish Hotels guide.
About Polestar
Polestar (Nasdaq: PSNY) is the Swedish electric performance car brand with a focus on uncompromised design and innovation, and the ambition to accelerate the change towards a sustainable future. Headquartered in Gothenburg, Sweden, its cars are available in 27 markets globally across North America, Europe and Asia Pacific.
Polestar 4
In the UK, Polestar is based in Bicester, Oxfordshire. A total of nine retail locations, known as Polestar Spaces, are available for customers to physically engage with Polestar Specialists and arrange test drives.
Polestar has three models in its line-up: Polestar 2, Polestar 3, and Polestar 4. Planned models include the Polestar 5 four-door GT (to be introduced in 2025), the Polestar 6 roadster and the Polestar 7 compact SUV. With its vehicles currently manufactured on two continents, North America and Asia, Polestar plans to diversify its manufacturing footprint further, with production of Polestar 7 planned in Europe.
Polestar has an unwavering commitment to sustainability and has set an ambitious roadmap to reach its climate targets: halve greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 per-vehicle-sold and become climate-neutral across its value chain by 2040. Polestar’s comprehensive sustainability strategy covers the four areas of Climate, Transparency, Circularity, and Inclusion. polestar.com
