Drawing Rooms of Berry

From solar panels to native gardens, The Drawing Rooms of Berry has long embraced green practices.

In the South Coast hinterland, surrounded by rolling green hills and framed by the spectacular Shoalhaven escarpment, sits The Drawing Rooms of Berry, a 15-acre retreat offering four luxury self-contained lodges. Just two hours south of Sydney and minutes from the charming village of Berry, it has become a boutique escape for couples, friends, and families who want to enjoy comfort while staying connected to nature.

From its beginnings, The Drawing Rooms has placed environmental sustainability at the heart of its operations.

“Sustainable practices are fundamental to our values and a core part of our operations at The Drawing Rooms,” explained Special Projects Manager, Hannah Bligh.

The property already had strong sustainability credentials before starting its certification journey. Designed by award-winning landscape designer and co-owner, Michael Bligh, the gardens feature native and naturalistic plantings that attract pollinators while thriving without fertiliser or excess water. Two banks of solar panels power the lodges, pool pump, and even robot lawnmowers. Water comes from a natural mountain spring, while all grey and brown water is treated and reused to nourish the garden.

Guests are also encouraged to participate.

“Bottles and cans go to our local high school so they can benefit from Return & Earn; food scraps go to our chickens and coffee grounds to our compost bay,” Hannah said.

Eco-friendly refillable bathroom amenities and compostable teabags from a local fine tea merchant add to the guest experience while keeping sustainability front and centre.

The Drawing Rooms also plays an active role in supporting the local economy by providing employment for housekeeping staff, a massage therapist, and a garden maintenance team, alongside sourcing most supplies locally.

Despite these efforts, the team wanted a way to benchmark their practices against global standards. That’s where the Strive 4 Sustainability Scorecard came in. The Scorecard is a pre-certification benchmarking tool that measures a business’s operations against 50 criteria across four pillars of sustainability: sustainable management, environmental impacts, socio-economic impacts, and cultural impacts. Valid for 12 months, it provides personalised feedback, identifies strengths and gaps, and helps businesses prepare for globally recognised certification.

“We were really keen to undertake a thorough evaluation of our operations to understand our areas of strength and things we could be doing better,” Hannah explained.

The feedback proved invaluable.

“It’s given us valuable and very specific feedback for some key areas, including the need to actually tell our guests more about our extensive sustainability efforts. It was a great prompt to update our marketing materials and guest information to allow guests to understand more about our ethos.”

The Scorecard confirmed that The Drawing Rooms was performing strongly in sustainable management and environmental impacts while offering ideas to improve in areas such as cultural heritage.

“It was really useful to gain more ideas to improve our impact in respect of cultural heritage,” Hannah said.

For the team, the process has made the next step clear.

“The Scorecard process showed us our strengths within multiple sustainability areas and what we can do to fill any gaps, so having already gone through that process of in-depth analysis, Certification is the logical next step.”

For The Drawing Rooms of Berry, the Scorecard has been an essential stepping stone, turning their commitment to sustainability into measurable progress and providing a pathway toward certification. For other tourism businesses, it offers the same opportunity: an accessible, practical way to assess operations, gain credibility with travellers, and build confidence for the next stage of their sustainability journey.

Click here to learn more about Drawing Rooms of Berry’s sustainable efforts, and book your stay: https://www.drawingrooms.com.au/kangaroo-valley-luxury-accommodation/#sustainabilityPlan

Drawing Rooms of Berry completed their Strive 4 Sustainability Scorecard on 19 August 2025 and is a snapshot of their current sustainability practices. The scorecard is not a certification and is valid for 12 months upon completion.