We have met all the energy needs of the activity center from renewable sources since 2017. This means that the heating and cooling as well as the electric energy needs are provided from renewable energy.
Ladybird Farm Activity Center in a nutshell
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Ladybird Farm Activity Center was established in 2002 as a family business. In the past 2 decades, we have continuously developed our services which is a driving principle for us. Our aim is to:
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Our product is FUN. We believe that FUN has 3 elements and we aim to provide all three of these elements to the greatest possible extent:
If any of these 3 parts are missing the expected „buzz” won’t be there and the visitor may not return. We thrive on providing outstanding services and exceed the expectations of our guests. |
Our key value is to live and operate in harmony with our environment. Let us share 3 proverbs with you:
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„We believe in the concept of borrowing our Earth from our successors rather than inheriting it from our predecessors.”For us, this means that we must use the available natural resources in such a way that there will be enough for our successors. Also, we operate our business in a way that creates the least damage to mother nature. In the sections below we describe our initiatives to achieve this. |
„When the Last Tree Is Cut Down, the Last Fish Eaten, and the Last Stream Poisoned, You Will Realize That You Cannot Eat Money.”For us this means that profit cannot be the only goal, it must be complemented with other, measurable initiatives that minimize the environmental impact of our operations. We must continuously challenge the ways we work every day and try to find new practices to further decrease the bad environmental impact of our business. In the ESG sections, we introduce 3 additional metrics that measure the extent to which we use the environmental resources and the damaging impact we have for our environment. |
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Einstein had a famous saying: "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and EXPECTING different results."For us, this means that we have to change our everyday practices if we want to achieve change in our impact on our environment. If we do everything in the same way tomorrow as we do it today why would anything change? |
It also means that we have to change our consumption habits which we have seen does decrease our convenience levels.
Let us give you an example: It is very easy to take a plastic bottled (PET) beverage from a cool refrigerator, consume it in a couple of minutes and then drop the plastic bottle into the bin. But what will happen to the PET bottle? Will it be reused or will it simply go into one of the mountain sized landfill sites like 90% of the daily garbage we produce? As you read further down the page it becomes very clear that “recyclable” does not mean the bottle automatically will be physically reused.
We stopped selling plastic bottled beverages in 2021. Instead, we offer 10 different purely fruit based fountain drinks that you can consume in a paper cup or in your own water bottle. All we need to change is ask you to bring a water bottle with you. That is all!
Principles with no compromise
We live by a couple of strict principles that may seem “naïve” or even “insane”. However, we believe if something is perceived “strange” or “wild” today that easily can become the accepted norm of the future.
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We implement only such services that do not consume any energy, or if they do, we provide it from locally produced renewable sources. In other words, if we develop any new services they must take their energy consumption from renewable sources.
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We do not offer 3 for the price of 2 when 1 is enough. For us the objective is not to maximize our sales from our visitors first visit. We would rather provide remarkable memories and our visitors come back for repeat visits.
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Our aim is to minimize our physical material usage!
Why? Because the top 20% of the world’s population consume 80% of the world’s materials. Think about what would happen if the remaining 80% would like to live and consume like us in the top 20%! We recommend to all our customers to buy only what they really need for the long run. Do not buy stuff for one time use that then sits in their drawers at home! Fun and nice memories are enduring, let’s gather more of them!
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Just because something is cheap does not mean we should waste it!
In Hungary drinking water is relatively cheap. Regardless of the cost, we should not waste it! If the measure used is “money” - rather than the quantity of water used – then are more likely to see the amount of the invoice rather than the volume of water. This principle should be applied for other resources we use.
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For us, our harmonious coexistence with nature is the driving development principle.
A development may be profitable but if it has a negative, enduring impact on our environment we would not implement it (e.g. this is why we do not have fossil fuel go-kart, instead we operate electrically powered ones).
When we make our development decision we use 2 equally important factors:
(1) it should increase customer satisfaction and provide a reasonable profit (being a family owned business we need profit to fund more attractions and activities), and
(2) there should be a social value of the development including environmental criteria.
The key factor of this principle is to live in synergy with our environment. So, if a development may have enduring negative impact for our environment, we do not implement it regardless of the profitability.
We ensure the implementation of these principles by using two methods, that are (1) “The total cost of ownership” which takes into account the 3-5 years of operational cost of the investment, also and (2) the continuous analysis of our supply chain. The objective is very clear, we must decrease the environmental damage year by year!
Our strategic objective is to develop our services to a level where a visitor causes less "damage" to the environment, has a smaller ecological footprint, than if they had stayed at home or gone somewhere else.
(The ecological footprint is the impact of human existence on the earth, e.g. volume of garbage and sewage water, use of fossil fuel, etc.)
Measures that we have already taken
We have created a Sustainability Map of Ladybird Farm which we have updated several times as we implement more and more environmentally conscious solutions.
This is how we leave the smallest ecological footprint:
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Solar farms:
We generate 169,4 kW of photovoltaic solar power in 7 different locations that together provide 100% of electricity consumption of the activity center. You can see them (1) in the parking lot where it also provides shading, (2) by the electric go-kart track, (3)by the milking barn, (4-5) on the roof of the lakeside house and the adventure cove, (6) on the hillside by the castle and (7) on the the top of the event venue barn.
Together the solar farms generate over 200 MWh electricity each year.
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Heat collectors:
You can see we have 3 panel heat collectors on the top of the maintenance workshop. These provide hot water for our kitchen and the toilets/bathrooms on shiny days.
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Rainwater collector tanks:
We collect rainwater from our rooftops in 20 and 5 cubic meter rainwater tanks. We use this water, after filtration, for irrigation, cleaning and in the majority of our toilets
You can see the top of the tanks by the side of the ecological root zone treatment field.
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Root zone waste water treatment plant:
We treat the majority of the waste water from the activity center with a natural treatment without using any energy or chemicals.
By treating our sewage water on site rather than shipping it to the nearest treatment plant (22 km away) we save 4000 transit km and a significant amount of chemicals.
You can find the treatment plant opposite the terrace of the restaurant behind the green fence. There is also a small billboard explaining how it works.
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Individual waste water treatment points:
In addition to our central root zone treatment plant, there are 5 smaller wase water treatment points that also operates in an ecological way: no energy and no chemicals are used.
We had to install these smaller solutions due to the hilly terrain and the significant distances involved in moving the waste water to the main treatment plant.
These smaller plants are located by the outdoor slides, by the lake side house, in the lama yard, at the water park and by the electric go-kart track.
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Selective garbage collection:
Separating waste is the simplest way to protect our environment. Based on our experience, 90-95% of household waste can be recycled if we collect it selectively. Only 5-10% is real garbage.
In our activity center you will always find 2 waste bins side by side: in one we collect the PET bottles and the aluminum cans while in the other the real garbage.
Please take the extra second and use the appropriate bin!
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Pay with waste:
Across Hungary for sure and possibly in the whole of Europe, we are the only place where visitors can pay a part of their entrance fee by selectively collecting waste.
If you bring plastic bottles, aluminum cans or paper we count it towards your entrance fee and you will pay less!
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No plastic bottled beverages, instead you can drink 12 different taste of fruit juice:
We do not sell plastic bottled beverages in our activity center (mineral water is the only exception and we are working hard to find a substitute product).
Instead of plastic bottled drinks, we have provided multiple fruit juice fountains where you can tap the selected drink that you can consume in a paper cup or in your own water bottle. We also sell aluminum water bottles if you forgot to bring your own!Why do not we sell plastic bottled beverages? For two reasons:
(1) at the moment there is not enough industrial capacity to reprocess all the selectively collected plastic waste. In other words, even if we collect all plastic waste selectively, it cannot be fully reprocessed, and
(2) a PET bottle can only be reprocessed between 2 and 4 times due to the chemical process that it goes through. It then becomes unreprocessable (while the aluminum cans can continue to be reprocessed time after time).
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We only use biodegradable catering packaging:
The non-biodegradable, one time use catering packaging such as plastic cups and straws plus packaging such as styrofoam food containers creates huge volumes of garbage. We only use biodegradable articles for our catering and therefore our ecofootprint is zero. It is more costly but we think this is an important and relatively small change in behavior!
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LED and motion sensor lighting:
All our light bulbs and fluorescent lamps are LED and therefore consume a fraction of the old types of lighting. Again, it is more costly to buy these bulbs but the total cost of ownership is less.
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Wind generator:
We have a small 300 W windmill that generates electricity that we’re able to store in 2 batteries. This provides power for lighting the “Sustainable Earth Barn”. You can see the windmill in front of the barn.
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We have 3 pipeline circuits for our water
In a normal building there is a single pipe circuit that caries drinking water from the local water utility company. In our Activity Center we have 3 different circuits:
- communal circuit that is coming from the local water utility pipe and carries clean water,
- we have our own well that uses the same source of water that the utility company uses. However, we do not use deferrization which is very costly and a high energy need operation. We use this water for nonhuman consumption,
- rainwater circuit: we use this water for flushing our toilets, irrigation and outdoor washing.
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“Sustainable Earth” Barn
Using 14 information boards we explain in simple terms the concepts of sustainable development, ecological footprint and biocapacity, the types of renewable energies. We also describe what we have done for our environment and what everybody can do to protect it.
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Biomass based heating center:
The hot water and some of the heating in the activity center comes from biomass. In the 2 bunkhouses and campsite both the hot water and heating is also produced from biomass. We integrated the biomass heater with our heat pumps and they complement each other based on the weather.
We do not use gas in the activity center, bunkhouse or campsite.
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Loyalty points for batteries and bulbs waste:
We described above that our visitors can pay a part of their entrance with selectively collected waste.
We also give loyalty points for our Ladybird Member Cardholders if they bring 5 used batteries or light bulbs/pipes. These loyalty points can be used to pay for services. (We give max. 2 loyalty points per single family visit even if you bring more batteries or bulbs.)
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Bring your old mobile phone:
In the fall of 2019, we joined the mobile phone recollection campaign of the Jane Goodall Institute.
You can bring your old, unwanted mobile phones to be recycled. We also give loyalty points for these mobiles!
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Electric go-kart track:
We built a 420m long go-kart track where you can speed along in one of the 16 single and 8 dual seat go-karts. We also built a solar farm park alongside the track and this produces the necessary electricity to charge the karts and also operate the hospitality building. Zero pollution and noise with 100 % of fun!
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Electric car charger points:
There are two charging points in our parking lot each with 22kW capacity. It’s easy to charge your car while you enjoy our attractions!
We have also made multiple efforts to protect the future of our grandchildren:
- We have push operated water taps:
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In multiple locations you can find these taps, they reduce usage while still giving you plenty of water.
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Waterless urinals:
We use urinals that do not use need for flushing. We save many cubic meters of water with this solution.
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Taps with water saving aerators:
By putting these small aerators into the taps, the quantity of water flowing through the tap is decreased by 70-80%, but has not impact on the efficiency of hand washing.
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Composting:
We have built a wooden cage where we place green waste and coffee grounds. As this fills up we are able to use the contents as fertilizer.
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Cleaning detergents:
We strive to use biodegradable cleaning detergents. For example, we use bio fermented vinegar for descaling, and horse chestnut based cleaning detergent.
- In winter, we use ash instead of salt for slip relief on pavements.
We have joined the international initiatives – the Sustainable Development Goals of the UN their implementation on Ladybird Farm Activity Center.
For the past 2 decades, we have put sustainability and minimizing our ecological footprint as a central focus of our operations. Therefore, we have joined this UN initiative that consists of the 17 common goals (Sustainable Development Goals in short, SDGs) in order to support the long-term longevity and peaceful existence of mankind on our planet.
There is also a corresponding framework, called ESG, the Environmental, Social and Governance framework. The objective of this framework is to measure the level of sustainability and ethical operation of companies, including their investment policies.
In simple terms, the sustainability goals (SDGs) give the objectives, in other words “What do we want to achieve?”, while the ESG framework gives the measurement method, “How will we achieve the objectives?”.
We also added an 18th SDG objective that puts aside the purely profit motive and offers alternative performance indicators that aim to measure the environmental impact of our business operations (e.g. kg garbage / 100 visitors)
We at Ladybird Farm Leisure Center gladly joined these initiatives. You can read our commitments on the following posters.
