As we strive to be one of the most ‘green’ golf courses in the world, this 5th June, World Environmental Day 2024, we draw attention to some of our eco-credentials, encouraging other to adopt environmental practices to take steps towards a greener future.

This year’s theme for World Environment Day is “restoration, desertification, and drought resilience”. 2024 marks the 30th anniversary of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification and the call to action and awareness is about land restoration.

Land restoration is a key pillar of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (2021-2030), a program for the protection and revival of ecosystems all around the world.

The degradation of the land and decline of ecosystems across the world is well documented and at Vipingo Ridge we have a number of environmental initiatives, including restoring our former sisal farm to a Kenyan coastal habitat.

We also have the only PGA branded golf course in Africa within our development. We take a proactive approach to balancing our love of the game and our sustainability mission.

Here are 5 ways a golf course can be environmentally conscious:

1. Take steps to respect resources and maximise renewable utilities

With the climate and consistent daylight Kilifi Kenya is a great place to have solar power. Our 2 acre solar farm makes an important contribution to our power needs. We continue to make strides to increase our use of renewable power sources.

The seasons in Kenya revolve around the rains. In recent years there have been well documented droughts across Kenya. Vipingo Ridge takes the capture, storage and usage of water very seriously.

One of the fundamentals of the infrastructure at Vipingo Ridge is our drainage system. The open drains focus on capturing as much of the rainfall as possible. We invested in a manmade reservoir in recent years as an important storage mechanism.

We have also worked with the local community to introduce a dam. This enables us to control the flow of water coming into the estate, storage water in a beautiful natural waterway as well as offering reliable water for our upstream neighbours.

Our water management practices are one of the reasons Vipingo Ridge was highlighted in a recent report as an example of a model Eco-focussed Wildlife Estate.

2. Grass choices for the climate

Water is a precious commodity and when managing a golf course at the Kenyan coast it can be a challenge.

As a PGA course we pride ourselves on the course conditions and we approach our watering schedules with great consideration. We have also invested in smart irrigation systems and technology to optimise our water usage.

During the quiet period during Covid-19 there was an opportunity to make changes to the course to further improve our water usage.

We changed our greens across the course from Bermuda grass to paspalum. Paspalum us drought tolerant as it grows in tropical areas across the world. As is does not require as much watering as other grasses and has a higher tolerance for extreme temperatures, it has been a great choice to improve our water usage.

Our course design is also planted with local plants and trees, focusing drought tolerant species, creating habitat, but not unsustainably.

3. Prioritising indigenous plants and trees

We have planted tens of thousands of native trees so far. Tree planting is one of our core activities. For 17 years our founders have focused on native flora and fauna as a key part of the Vipingo Ridge landscape.

There is a proactive program to suppress the non-native species of plants and trees. Often these are more aggressive and successful than the indigenous plants and therefore require intervention to not takeover.

Our course is named the PGA Baobab Course after the abundant of planting of the coastal icon.

On World Environment Day we are working with a number of stakeholders to plant trees at Vipingo Ridge and will be once again making a rallying point for the community to plant trees.

Many courses have spaces where a cut lawn could become a wildflower meadow, or a grove of trees could be planted. With well-kept greens and fairways it’s important to find ways to be creative in re-introducing native plants and trees.

3. Restoring vulnerable species

This point is an area that makes Vipingo Ridge somewhat unique. We are a designated Wildlife Sanctuary, and through our partnership with Kenya Wildlife Services (KWS) we are on a journey to help them to breed vulnerable species.

Over three years ago the first of the returning animals were introduced. Moved from situations of human/wildlife conflict, drought and other threats, with the hope that the animals would feel comfortable in the environment and develop breeding groups to mix new combinations of bloodlines.

The project has been a noted success to date. Our blog explaining the journey to our current position in this innovation program gives more details.

Not everyone can have giraffes on the golf course, but we also, through the work to replacing the trees and plants, have welcome back many species of birds. The migratory birds are a particularly exciting visitor, but every course can create nesting spaces and water sources.

Food sources for birds are a particuarly important part of attracting and keeping these residents - sympathy to insects and restricted use of pesticides is a decision that makes a real different to populations.

5. Reducing plastic use, recycling and composting   

Golf Clubs are great social meeting points, but will food and beverage operations there are inevitable producers of waste.

We were early adopters of paper straws. Our continued mission to reduce single use plastic continues. This practice extends to our use of recyclable glass bottles for our water and sodas. Our local Kenya Coast suppliers collaborate with us to reduce our shared plastic use. They take back the glass bottles for reuse.

This low footprint supply chain cycle is one we are very proud of.

We also partner with a green recycling organisation for our waste collection. Homeowner and resort waste products are collected by our partner. Our garden waste from across the estate, including private homes, we collect for composting. This organic compost is then used for our plant and tree nursery, creating a cycle to reinvest in the restoration of the land.

Having a recycling plan and composting are both great ways to make a golf club more green,