The Castle Howard Estate spans far beyond the House and Grounds, encompassing 9,000 acres nestled in the Howardian Hills National Landscape. Our purpose goes beyond the conservation of the historic House, with an equal focus on preserving and restoring the land and wildlife that make Castle Howard A Place Like No Other.
Our approach to sustainability is in line with our Purposeful Development Vision: restore, regenerate and revive. Our definition of ‘regenerate’ is committing to the continued evolution of land management practices to protect and regenerate the biodiversity of the Howardian Hills.
"Our view is that the landscape is equally as important as the architecture. We pride ourselves on having both built and natural heritage, which are extremely precious to us."
- Nick Howard
As a large visitor attraction, we recognise the responsibility that we have to demonstrate leadership on sustainability, minimising the impact of our operations, trialing new approaches and communicating this challenge to the public.
Climate change and biodiversity loss represent a significant risk to our normal day to day operation, extreme weather events reduce the number of days that we can open to the public and cause damage to our buildings and trees, changes to rainfall patterns cause flash flooding and prolonged drought making water a critical resource for us to manage and the loss of biodiversity risk represents an erosion of the habitats and wildlife that make our landscape unique.
Therefore, reducing the impact of our operations is a hugely important part of how we manage the estate. Reducing our emissions aligns us to global ambitions to avoid evermore extreme climate change, working with nature allows us to build resilience to climate change and to provide additional space for biodiversity. The platform that we have as a large visitor operation allows us to share this work with visitors and inspires them to make changes in their day-to-day lives.
2009
Ground source heat pump in the Lake
2009–2015
Woodchip boiler installation
Solar panels in the Walled Garden
2018
Castle Howard Green Group starts, staff and volunteer led
2019
Baseline year (re-baselined in 2022)
2022
Re-baseline carbon footprint, understand our carbon footprint using scientists we have a relationship with
Waste: started measuring our waste
Purposeful development strategy, founding Natural Environment team
2023
Changed to buildings using only renewable energy
Electric vehicle fleet established (any new vehicles purchased will be electric vehicles)
Installation of electric car chargers
Supplier guidelines
2024
Coneysthorpe geothermal funding approved (December)
2025
Conservation Volunteer scheme wins award
2026
Pathway to Net Zero
2030
Net Zero goal
Until 2058
Bog Hall project