There’s no doubt in saying our beautiful corner of the country is blessed with its extraordinary natural, cultural, and historical heritage with vibrant and diverse communities and a great food and drink offer. We know how much you visitors and residents love Kent’s natural landscapes, wildlife and habitats, and with Kent being one of the most wildlife-rich counties in the UK, with 116 sites of national/international importance for conservation, it’s not hard to see why! The Kent Downs National Landscape makes up almost a quarter of the region, providing you with the opportunity to explore and experience this wonderful Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. From stunning landscapes, rich history, parks, woodlands, wildlife and more, there’s plenty to explore along Kent’s outstanding landscapes.
The climate and biodiversity emergencies and a global pandemic have created an urgent need to act to protect and enhance Kent’s vital tourism assets. So, here at Visit Kent, we’ve put together a Sustainable Tourism Action Plan which outlines key steps that we, alongside local tourism businesses and other friends of Visit Kent can take between now and 2030, to play our part in and transition towards Net Zero and a nature positive future.
As part of this plan, we’ve come up with lots of tips and inspiration to help you in taking those all-important steps, big or small to leave a lighter footprint while you’re enjoying our wonderful county!
We've also teamed up with our friends at Southeastern Railway, LNER and HS1 to produce The Green Guide 2024 - a guide to the best eco-friendly attractions, destinations and sustainable places to stay, eat and drink in Canterbury & the Kent Coast as well as Ashford & Folkestone.
Don’t you just love it when a menu is full of local Kentish produce? Well, we certainly do, so we’ve made Food For Good our first priority action. This action focuses on reducing food’s climate and nature impact by actively increasing local, seasonal, organic and plant based options on menus and increasing demand by celebrating Kentish produce.
Our friends over at Produced in Kent most definitely are the experts when it comes to Kent produce. Striving to support and promote the local independent food and drink sector here in Kent, Produced in Kent are a leading organisation with sustainability at the heart of what they do. Giving you the chance to discover Kent’s finest produce, as well as showcasing upcoming foodie events which we know you all love, it’s time to dig in to the world of Produced in Kent and uncover more of Kent’s produce.
Remember we mentioned that yummy Kentish produce? It's certainly no challenge to enjoy some of that! So, do your bit by supporting businesses who source local ingredients using reduced food miles to create delicious dishes for their menu.
Check out our features below for a delicious Kentish treat...
Our Go Nature Positive initiative aims to focus on conserving, preserving, or restoring landscapes, habitats, and wildlife. Within this we hope to encourage you to help us in protecting Kent’s nature and wildlife through an innovative nature pay back scheme.
Wondering how else can you get involved? Enters our friends at Kent Wildlife Trust… As you probably know, Kent Wildlife Trust play a vital role in ensuring that Kent’s wildlife and wild spaces are protected, so how would you like to help them on their journey? From supporting the Trust through their amazing projects and experience to getting involved by joining the volunteering team or donating, there’s plenty of ways you can help!
Step into Kent's landscapes and browse our favourite outdoor-friendly features below...
How do you like to get from a to b? Well here in Kent, we’ve got plenty of ways in which you can travel around our beautiful destinations in a more carbon-friendly way. From hopping on the train with our friends at Southeastern to catching the bus with Stagecoach and Arriva, it really couldn’t be any easier! So, our aim for this action is to encourage this way of low carbon, active travel by making it easier for you to find information and explore Kent’s many travel routes and options.
Speaking of Southeastern Railway, have you checked out their Carbon Calculator? Use this to calculate your carbon footprint and see the environmental impact of your journey for both train and car travel.
There are various modes of transports that you can take when making your journey, so wouldn’t it be great if there was a way for you find out the smartest way to travel? Well, we’ve got just the solution. Kent Connected can support you to do just that by helping you to determine the best mode of transport for your journey, resulting in time and money saving – like we said, it’s the smarter way of travelling!
Oh yes, we’ve got another useful tool for you to check out. Good Journey is on a mission to make every visitor attraction in the UK accessible by public transport, bike and foot. And as you’re here to learn more about sustainable travel, it only makes sense to explore those Kent attractions that make your car-free adventures possible.
Hop on board and leave the car at home...
Have you heard about our Impact Heroes? As part of our new Sustainable Tourism Action Plan, we recently launched a new initiative, called, ‘Impact Heroes’ to shine a light on the amazing sustainability goals and achievements that our friends from local tourism and hospitality business have achieved. This could be anything from developing nature-positive activities or experiences, reducing energy-use or celebration of local produce… but let’s not get too carried away because we have a whole blog all about the amazing work of these businesses to inspire you for your next sustainable trip to Kent.
