We detail how The Lovat, winner of the Environment Award at the 2026 Hotel Magazine Awards, is redefining sustainable highland hospitality.
At the southern tip of Loch Ness, where ancient woodland folds into mist-covered hills and the pace of life slows almost instinctively, sustainability at The Lovat is not a marketing strategy or a modern retrofit. It is something far more deeply ingrained; a philosophy shaped by landscape, community, and a deliberate commitment to doing things differently.
Under the leadership of Caroline Gregory, Director of The Lovat, the independently owned Highland hotel has spent more than two decades quietly building a model of hospitality that places people, place, and long-term thinking at its centre. That approach was recently recognised with the Environment Award at the Hotel Magazine Awards, but for Caroline, the accolade simply acknowledged a journey that has been unfolding for years.
“Winning that award meant a great deal. Not because we needed external validation, but because it felt like recognition of a very long journey,” she said. “When you’ve been quietly getting on with something for over two decades, it’s heartening to have it acknowledged.”
Central to The Lovat’s identity is its long-established “forage, grow, gather” ethos – a phrase that has evolved into something far broader than its culinary origins.
“‘Forage, grow, gather’ began as an instinct before it ever became a phrase,” Caroline explained. “When we first took on The Lovat, we recognised we were surrounded by an extraordinary landscape, Loch Ness, ancient woodland, open hillside, and it felt almost wasteful not to engage with it.”
Today, the philosophy shapes every aspect of the guest experience, from the kitchen to the wider culture of the hotel itself. While “forage” refers quite literally to the wild ingredients gathered from the surrounding landscape – herbs, mushrooms, flowers, fruit, and nuts that appear on the menus at Station Road restaurant – the concepts of “grow” and “gather” reach much further.
“Grow is about so much more than what comes out of the ground,” Caroline said. “It’s about how we develop as a business, constantly evolving, constantly improving. It’s about growing with our guests, listening to what they need and letting that shape what we offer. It’s about growing with our team, investing in their futures and watching them develop alongside the business.”
Likewise, “gather” has become a philosophy of curiosity and connection. “It’s about asking questions, listening carefully, researching, staying open,” she said. “Gathering information, gathering ideas, gathering the relationships that sustain everything else.”
This sense of intentionality underpins what The Lovat refers to as its “Coftie” philosophy – a distinctly Highland approach centred on slowing down, reconnecting with place, and creating experiences rooted in authenticity rather than excess.
Guests encounter that ethos from the moment they arrive. A hot toddy made with the hotel’s own honey offers an immediate sense of place, while immersive experiences encourage visitors to engage more deeply with the Highlands around them. Foraging excursions, whisky tastings linked to Highland culture and landscape, tea ceremonies using dried and fresh wild ingredients, and even conversations about the hotel’s pioneering biomass heating system all become part of the wider story.
“We want guests to leave with a genuine sense of this place, feeling they have slowed down enough to exhale,” Caroline said. “That’s what Coftie means in practice.”
The environmental infrastructure supporting those experiences has, in many cases, been ahead of its time. One of The Lovat’s proudest achievements remains its biomass woodchip boiler, installed in 2006, the first of its kind in the Highlands, alongside a smart heating system integrated with the hotel’s property management software.
“We were doing things then that the industry is only now beginning to talk about seriously,” Caroline noted.
Yet while renewable energy systems and operational efficiencies form part of the hotel’s sustainability strategy, Caroline is clear that environmental responsibility cannot exist in isolation from people.
“Sustainability, to me, has always been about people as much as planet,” she said. That philosophy led to one of the hotel’s most significant long-term investments: purchasing staff accommodation in 2018 to provide stable housing within the local community.
“That decision has had a quietly profound impact,” Caroline explained. “It’s created stability, loyalty, and a sense of belonging that filters into every guest interaction.”
The people-first approach also extends beyond The Lovat itself. Caroline is heavily involved in Hospitality Apprenticeship Scotland and co-founded Hospitality Connect, a Highlands-based initiative focused on developing young talent and improving perceptions of hospitality careers.
“If we want a sustainable hospitality industry in the long-term, we have to invest in the people who will build it,” she said. “That means working with young people early, inspiring them, and showing them what this industry can genuinely offer.”
Maintaining a deeply embedded sustainability ethos, however, is not without its challenges, particularly in a rural location where supply chains can be complex and staffing increasingly international.
“The honest answer is that the biggest challenge has never really been the doing – it’s been the communicating,” Caroline said. “When sustainability is so embedded in how you operate, it can be easy to forget that not everyone on the team arrives with the same understanding or the same instincts.”
Training and culture therefore play a critical role in ensuring sustainability is consistently understood and applied across the business. “You have to build those values deliberately,” she explained, “through training, through conversation, through making sure the ethos is visible in everything from the induction process to the daily briefing.”
Another ongoing challenge is navigating the realities of a throwaway culture that often conflicts with the hotel’s own principles. “Excessive packaging from suppliers and deliveries is a constant frustration,” Caroline said. “And not every business we interact with shares our ethos.”
Rather than becoming discouraged, The Lovat has focused on influencing change through long-term supplier relationships and open dialogue. The hotel has worked collaboratively with suppliers to introduce compostable packaging alternatives and returnable box schemes, reducing waste across the supply chain.
“These aren’t grand gestures,” Caroline said. “They’re the result of treating suppliers as partners rather than just vendors, and being willing to ask the question even when the answer isn’t immediately straightforward.”
The same philosophy informs the hotel’s wider relationship with the Highlands community. Monthly litter picks, free room hire for local groups, and sourcing decisions that prioritise proximity and shared values all reinforce The Lovat’s belief that a hotel should contribute meaningfully to the place it inhabits.
“We see The Lovat not as a business that happens to be in the Highlands, but as part of the Highlands – with all the responsibility that carries,” Caroline said.
The recent appointment of a horticulturalist marks the next stage in that evolution, deepening both the hotel’s kitchen garden programme and its relationships with local growers and producers.
“That feels like the most exciting chapter yet,” Caroline added. “Taking what grows on our land and putting it on the plate, consistently, with a true story, is something we’ve been working towards for years.”
Looking ahead, The Lovat’s sustainability ambitions continue to expand. Plans currently under consideration include air source heat pumps for staff accommodation, additional EV charging points, an electric courtesy vehicle, and further investment in food waste reduction and bulk purchasing to minimise single-use packaging.
At the same time, Caroline believes hotels must begin using their collective influence more assertively. “Hotels need to start pushing back to suppliers, collectively and confidently, and setting a standard for what is and isn’t acceptable,” she said. “The industry has more leverage than it often realises.”
Ultimately, though, Caroline sees the future of sustainable hospitality not as a checklist of environmental measures, but as a cultural shift that touches every part of hotel operations.
“Sustainability has to be built into how people are trained, how they think, and how they make decisions day to day,” she says. “It can’t be a module in an induction. It has to be the culture.”
For guests, she believes hospitality has a unique opportunity to make sustainable living feel effortless and enjoyable rather than restrictive. “People want to do the right thing – they just need it to be easy, and they need to feel invited rather than instructed,” she said. “Make it feel like part of the stay rather than a set of rules, and guests don’t just accept it, they become part of the movement.”
In an industry increasingly focused on environmental targets and green credentials, The Lovat offers something rarer: a vision of sustainability that feels personal, lived-in, and deeply connected to place. Here, sustainability is not layered on top of the guest experience, it is the guest experience itself.