A luxury boutique hotel which is leading the way in the field of green tourism has picked up a top honour for its work.

Cedar Manor at Windermere won the Sustainable Hotel of the Year award at the Hotel Cateys ceremony in London.

Organised by The Caterer magazine, the Cateys are known as the Oscars of the hospitality world.

Owners Caroline and Jonathan Kaye have championed its green policy since taking over the hotel more than 10 years ago.

The judges praised the team at the Cedar Manor for great long-term commitment to sustainable practice.

Jonathan said: “Every year we have an annual review of our environment activities and set new objectives. This is used to monitor all our practices, to set goals and record achievement.

“We appreciate that visitors have very high expectations with regard to this, and in the heart of the national park we have a responsibility to maintain and improve the environment.”

No strangers to picking up top honours, the couple are previous winners of the Best Small Hotel, national and international, at the Considerate Hoteliers awards and Best Small Hotel in Cumbria. They were also winners at this year’s Cumbria Family Business awards.

The hotel is involved with the Cumbria Business Environment Network and holds the Green Tourism gold award.

It supports several local charities including the Lake District Foundation, of which Jonathan is a trustee, and next week they are hosting a two-day forum for travel writers on sustainable tourism.

This will feature talks by leading environmentalists along with Gill Haigh, managing director of Cumbria Tourism, and Andrea Nicholas, managing director of Green Tourism UK.

“We’re proud of our green credentials, and this award is a real tribute to all the work our staff have done here,” said Jonathan.

“We focus not only on energy but on doing the right thing for the environment, educating ourselves, our staff and guests.

"The key is that we think ‘environment’ when we do anything in the building: when we instruct builders and interior designer to do anything we remind them we want to cover every angle, from insulation, to regulating water flow, to using recycled underlay, lead-free paints, LED lighting, thermostatic heating controls, sustainable wood and above all, trying to keep it British and local, manufactured in the north west.

“We have seen our carbon footprint reduce significantly in the last two years by effective management of gas and electricity. We are now looking at carbon payback schemes to offset the remainder.”