Our Challenge
We know the key to reducing our wastage, emissions and depletion of the earth’s resources lies in collaborating with like-minded people and sharing best practices. As part of our audit, we will be contacting our suppliers to ask how we can collectively work together and learn from them, improve the products we buy and processes we undertake.

Our Buildings
The Matara Centre was designed to use 25% of the energy of traditional buildings, with under floor heating that operates effectively at lower temperatures. We currently have oil fired central heating in the house, and our boiler is reaching the end of its life. Our target was originally to reduce the amount of oil we consume by 10% by the end of 2011. Rather than just replace the boiler with a more efficient oil dependent one, this is an opportunity for us to look at things differently … we are talking with local companies who have extensive experience of energy efficient products and are considering installing a biomass woodchip boiler to completely replace the oil. Biomass is a sustainable alternative fuel to the rapidly diminishing supply of fossil fuels and would be an excellent long term investment for us. Although biomass produces carbon dioxide, it only releases the same amount that it absorbed whilst growing, so making biomass a carbon neutral fuel. We would also be able to take advantage of The Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI), which is a payment set by the Government for generating heat from renewable sources where we will be paid for the hot water and heat we generate and use ourselves.

We buy our electricity through Ecotricity. Not only do they generate electricity through renewable sources such as wind, the sun and the sea, but they take the money their customers spend on electricity and reinvest it in more clean forms of power such as wind energy. Using traditionally generated electricity depletes fossil fuels such as coal, oil and natural gas – all non-renewable resources. They take millions of years to be formed in the crust of the earth by natural processes. Once burned to produce electricity, they are gone forever.

The “grey” waste water of the Matara Centre is recycled through our reed bed pond system; we ensure the bacteria works happily by using only environmentally friendly, non-toxic cleaning products in the house and Centre so we aren’t polluting with dangerous chemicals. We conserve water by ensuring the guttering channels the water to underground tanks where it is used for the reed bed ponds.

We are planning to drill a well on the estate which will provide enough water to meet the needs of the Centre and Kingscote Park House. More than 84% of the waste paper, food and plastics from events are recycled by Smiths of Gloucester. They have their own environmental agenda and have reduced their landfill by 20% since 2001. They extend the life of their skips and bins by repairing on site, and continue to invest in renewable energy technology to further reduce waste products transferred to landfill sites. We want to reduce the amount of waste we send to Smiths in the first place, therefore cutting down the landfill needed.

The parkland has been organic for the last 16 years and additionally has, for the last 3 years, been a biodynamic satellite of Ruskin Mill who harvest the wheat planted there. Ruskin Mill has 100 acres of land, cattle, sheep, sows and pigs, and two working horses which do all necessary cultivation work. There are also chickens, gardens with fruit, herbs, flowers, greenhouses and field vegetables, and extensive, sustainably-managed woodland and numerous craft workshops. Apprentices (many of whom are youngsters who have had a challenging upbringing) work alongside the staff and students on the land for the majority of the time.

Shipton Mill near Tetbury grinds the wheat we grow into organic flour of exceptional quality; their organic and wholemeal flours, many from traditional grains that are not hybrids or enhanced, are unsurpassed in texture and flavour and have built a well-earned reputation amongst Master Bakers all over the country.

Our Land
We set aside land for wildlife and encourage butterflies and bees and, in Spring 2011, planted over 400 trees which will provide blossom and a habitat for further wildlife. There are skylarks nesting in the meadows, the decline of which in the last 30 years has been directly due to the increase in pesticides. Our biodynamic farmland provides the ideal habitat for these birds and we hope to see even more of them in the future.

We have planted more than 1500 trees to offset the carbon emissions generated by visitors to the Centre, producing more oxygen than CO2, and making us a carbon-neutral location.

Our Food
We love local, seasonal, fresh food. We want to ensure the food we offer is grown, prepared and served with love and care. We believe this is the most fundamentally important aspect of eating good food.

In the Sufi kitchens, the cook’s concentration and emotional state were held in high regard; the cook needed to be aware of the importance of transforming material food ingredients into a finer state, maximizing their potential for human nourishment. The preparation of food requires attention, discretion, creativity, presence, love and patience; this identifies closely with our ethos at Matara.

We are now growing vegetables at Matara; we don’t expect to be self-sufficient, but we do want to show our commitment to local, fresh produce which has traveled very little distance before it reaches your plate. We also garnish your food with the herbs and edible flowers we grow in our Ornamental Herb & Flower Garden at Matara. We hope that everyone who comes to Matara will have a little of our seasonal produce on their plate.

We have recently begun to collaborate with The Community Farm which is based not far from us. The Community Farm was started by three people who have a lifetime’s commitment to the principles behind organic farming and hope to play a small part in reconnecting the local community with agriculture. Once our relationship with The Community Farm matures, they have offered to plant fruit and vegetables to order for us!

“The pleasure of food should be an extensive pleasure. People who know the garden in which their vegetables have grown and know that the garden is healthy will remember the beauty of the growing plants, perhaps in the dewy first light of morning when gardens are at their best. Such memory involves itself with food and is one of the pleasures of eating. The knowledge of good health in the garden relieves, frees and comforts the eater. The same goes for eating meat. The thought of the good pasture and of the calf contentedly grazing flavours the steak. The flavour of food is transformed when we know the food is grown, prepared and served with love and care and eaten with understanding and with gratitude. The pleasure of eating, then, may be the best available standard of our health.

“Eating with the fullest pleasure is perhaps the profoundest enactment of our connection with the world. In this pleasure we expand and celebrate out dependence and gratitude, for we are living from mystery, from creatures we did not make and powers we cannot comprehend.” From the “The Pleasure of Eating” by Wendell Berry.

Our Suppliers
We work with a number of reputable suppliers such as:

• Hobbs House Bakery, an artisan baker with five generations of family experience based in Chipping Sodbury


• Marshfield Farm Ice Cream, from whom we buy the organic ice creams we serve at our ice cream bar


• M&J Seafoods, our fish supplier, is committed to sourcing responsibly, supplying us with fish that is sustainable and ensures we meet our needs today whilst protecting our future needs.


• Cam Family Butchers, one of our meat suppliers, uses locally reared meat to ensure only the freshest cuts and ingredients go into their products. They can tell you which farm the meat would have come from and guarantee you that the meat is the freshest that you can buy.

Fairtrade Products are used by us as much as possible. The Fairtrade premium is a sum of money paid on top of the agreed Fairtrade price for investment in social, environmental or economic development projects. Fairtrade standards support the development of disadvantaged and marginalized small-scale farmers and plantation workers.

We are committed to auditing Matara’s processes and purchasing by 1st October 2011. We will publish our results honestly, showing what we have achieved, what our goals are, and how we believe we can achieve them. We look forward to sharing our challenges and achievements with you."

Geoffrey Higgins
Matara