Auvergne accommodation, France

We try to use mostly local and natural materials and only local builders to build. Our fourth room has been insulated with only natural, ecological products. The buildings are well insulated and heated on wood (except for rooms, still on electricity, but this will change). We give information to guests on saving water and we collect rain water for watering the garden. We use organic products in the kitchen, recycled paper and environmental friendly cleaning products.

All organic waste is either given to our animals or is composted. We recycle everything that can be recycled in France: we use the ‘bag bleu’ for plastic bottles, paper, cartons and tins. We take glass to the glass containers, chemical waste to the specific waste collection unit, old clothes, furniture, machines etc to the reinsertion NGO and we reuse most waste from building practices.

We work with local guides. We work together with and promote actively local tourist attractions (local producers that one can visit, the small museum nearby that is run by volunteers, the open mines of the stone carvers, the tennis court and the fishpond). We have created (together with others) a local association in order to promote (small scale) tourism in the area and to send clients to each other. We are actively involved in several local / regional organisations: member of the association that manages the small museum in Sauxillanges, member of the local tourist board (I have been for years member of the management committee), founder and treasurer for the regional tourist organisation, founder and active member of a local builders association, active member of the local association for sustaining local peasant farming.

The waitresses and persons for the cleaning in the guesthouse are all from our own village or the village just very nearby. The musicians that come and play at here in summer are all living in the department of the Puy de Dôme. We work only with local builders. We try to buy as much as possible from local producers and/or sellers, so vegetables, honey, cereals, meat, cheese, bread, and (for main part) wine are all produced in the department. We try to promote beer that is brewed in next department. We buy wood from a local one-man sawing enterprise, we work with local craftsmen for building, and the bed in the Nepal room has been handmade by a artist from our own village.