Climate? Positive!
Green Hotel Management with Respect for People, Wildlife and Environment
"Everything has to make sense for everyone" - a clear and at the same time highly challenging goal according to which the cousins Franz and Hannes Lichtmannegger have aligned the concept of the Berghotel Rehlegg in Ramsau near Berchtesgaden, which they run as a family business in the third generation. For many years now, sustainability and environmental protection have been practiced in all areas at Berghotel Rehlegg and are constantly being implemented. Sustainability, mindfulness and respect for nature, wildlife and people are essential here.
The First Carbon Negative Hotel in Upper Bavaria
The Lichtmannegger family run their family business, the Berghotel Rehlegg in Ramsau, as a holistic sustainable wellness hotel "with a twist". The environmentally friendly and responsible management includes a whole range of measures. For example, the Berghotel Rehlegg is the first hotel in Upper Bavaria to be climate-positive. More precisely: the house leaves a positive CO2 footprint by means of climate-positive overnight stays and a CO2-neutral website. To compensate for its own residual emissions, the Rehlegg actively participates in reforestation at home and abroad, for example as part of the climate hotel forest in Panama. But also in its own region, the Rehlegg team contributes to the environment: After a severe winter from 2018 to 2019 left behind heavy snow damage at the Ramsauer Gröllberg, the team took part in the nationwide #einheitsbuddeln initiative for the first time on October 3, 2019 and planted young larches on the site. Now the hotel is continuing the campaign by planting a tree for every fifth guest who arrives on a Friday. Friday in the sense of Fridays for Future? – No, an even better reason: this is the weekday with the most arrivals at Berghotel Rehlegg. In 2020, the hotel team was also able to plant another 120 larches and 30 spruces in a patch of forest on the local Hochschwarzeck. The long-term effect: with the reforestation, the open areas caused by snow damage will be covered again. Without this protective forest, the soil changes and thus loses humus, which, however, binds CO2 and is valuable for the climate. In short: Where humus is missing, CO2 escapes into the atmosphere. The new trees counteract this.
Not only in the forest, but also in agriculture, the loss of sufficiently humus-rich soil is a challenge, because modern cultivation of fields makes the layer of humus soil thinner. Moreover, humus build-up is a lengthy process that is additionally cost-intensive for the farmer. Therefore, since 2019, the Rehlegg has been relying on so-called "humus certificates" and thus compensates for this additional financial effort for the farmer via the CarboCert initiative – on the condition that his humus soil has really increased. The first partner in the project was farmer Hubert Mühlhauser, a long-standing supplier to the hotel from the region. To keep his soil healthy, he fertilizes with compost instead of liquid manure, for example. Minimum tillage and permanent planting are the order of the day as opposed to plowing and winter fallow. In addition, the farmer increases plant diversity and relies more on mixed rather than monocultures. In return, he receives an amount of 13,500 Euros through the humus certificates of the Rehlegg - the compensation for 300 tons of CO2 per year, which the hotel thus offsets. And all this right on the hotel's own doorstep.
Regenerative Energie
The hotel generates its own energy via the solar thermal system on the hotel roof. This can produce 70,000 kilowatt hours of electricity a year, saving the hotel 14,000 liters of heating oil a year. The system heats the indoor and outdoor pools and covers a large part of the total hot water requirements. In addition, the house has two combined heat and power units that produce 370,000 kilowatt hours of electricity annually. As a result, the Rehlegg can generate 70 percent of the electricity it needs on its own. It obtains the rest as green electricity from the hydropower of the Inn River.
"In our climate hotel forest in Panama, we have already planted over 23,000 trees in recent years to additionally offset our CO2 emissions, thus renaturalizing an area of over 210,000 square meters."
Franz Lichtmannegger
Owner Berghotel Rehlegg
Eco-friendly excursions with the Reh-Mobil
With the "Reh-Mobil", travelers can explore the Berchtesgadener Land in an environmentally friendly way. Guests of Berghotel Rehlegg can borrow the small e-car free of charge and use it to travel up to 160 kilometers. Also, there is an e-fueling station at the hotel. In addition, the hotel offers an e-mountain bike rental service, which is ideal for exploring the alpine landscape.
The Rehmobil takes you electrically through the legendary alpine landscape.
Suppliers from the Neighbourhood
When it comes to food, the Rehlegg relies fully on regional purchasing of goods, and tries to procure everything that can be obtained from the region from there as well. This strengthens the local companies and suppliers, and the guests know where the food on their plate was grown. In addition, the hotel acts in the sense of its responsibility for the environment, people and animals, because the Lichtmannegger family is convinced: "Cheap never pays off".
Meat and fish come exclusively from regional small farmers from Ramsau, which are a maximum of two kilometers away. Attention is paid to species-appropriate livestock farming. The game meat is supplied by the three professional hunters of the Berchtesgaden National Park. Although 75 percent of the national park area is in a rest zone all year round, the population of deer, stags and chamois must be controlled in the remaining quarter, as the animals have no natural enemies here.
The Rehlegg sources various types of cheese from local alpine dairies and has employed its own confectioner. For the dishes in the hotel's three restaurants, traditional Alpine recipes are combined with modern cooking – which means more vegetarian alternatives, delicious exotic flavors, and new innovations such as a nut squeezer on the breakfast buffet that delivers fresh nut-chocolate cream without additives.
Animal-friendly Initiatives
The black Alpine pigs, whose breeding is supported by the Berghotel Rehlegg, are allowed to mess around as they please. Once indigenous, the Black Alpine Pig was more and more displaced by conventional rearing pigs until it disappeared altogether at the beginning of the 20th century. The Lichtmannegger family brought it back to Ramsau a few years ago and is in exchange the main buyer of the meat. Today, several of the small dark piglets romp around every year in the barn of the two partner farmers. Compared to the pink breeds, the black Alpine pigs are more robust and absolutely suitable for the outdoors, especially since their dark bristle coat protects them better from the sun. They also like to be on the move and therefore grow more slowly than their pink relatives. Therefore, the Rehlegg pigs are allowed to live in the green meadow whenever possible – lucky bristly Alpine inhabitants!
The Lichtmannegger family has brought the Black Alpine Pigs back to Berchtesgadener Land and supports the breeding of the robust pig breed on a local farm.
Furthermore, the breakfast eggs at the Rehlegg come from particularly happy chickens: With a total of 15 hens and one rooster of the endangered breed Augsburg chicken, which are allowed to cluck and scratch on the green meadow in neighboring Bayrisch Gmain, the hotel started a partnership with Haus Hohenfried there in 2018. In the meantime, there have been several offspring. Of course, the brother chicks are also allowed to stay with the flock of chickens and continue to cluck blithely while the female chickens diligently lay eggs.
Almost 30,000 winged "employees" live on the meadow behind the hotel. These hotel bees not only provide honey for the breakfast buffet, but also wax for the massage talers, which are produced in the laboratory of the hotel’s own “Herb Fairy”. The alpine meadow behind the hotel is home to nearly 70 different plants and creates a paradise for numerous animal and insect species, such as moths and butterflies, forest bees, honey bees, furrow bees, sand bees and leafcutter bees. "Whatever wants to grow on the meadow may grow," says Franz Lichtmannegger - precisely in the interests of good soil and biodiversity.
Almost everything that is served at the Rehlegg is sourced locally by the Lichtmannegger family. In doing so, the hoteliers always personally see how the suppliers as well as the farmers and their livestock are doing - for example, the lambs that spend the summer on the high alpine pasture.
Home-made Alpine Herb Wellness
Already for several years Doris Hasenknopf is known as the Herb Fairy of Berghotel Rehlegg. She takes care of the hotel’s own garden with alpine herbs. In the lockdown, the herbal pedagogy has evolved into a more advanced idea. Henceforth, the fairy now has her own laboratory and conjures up the hotel's own natural cosmetics line in it, which is manufactured with medicinal herbs and plants, and under strict ecological guidelines. They are used in the SPA area and are sold in the small hotel shop. In addition, the spa team use pure natural cosmetics for all treatments.
To avoid waste in the bathrooms as well, the Rehlegg team has banned all individually packaged cosmetics. Instead, guests will find unpackaged hand and body soaps made from organic sheep's milk with honey and verbena and almond oil in their en suite bathrooms, which are not only good for the environment but also particularly kind to the skin.
All natural: The handmade cosmetics of the Rehlegg Herb Fairy are available for purchase online and offline in the hotel store. As a wellness hotel, the Rehlegg also makes sure that natural care lines are also used in the spa area.
Green Housekeeping with Effective Microorganisms
The Berghotel Rehlegg does completely without chemical cleaning agents. Instead, all rooms and public areas are cleaned exclusively biologically with effective microorganisms, or EM for short. These consist largely of yeasts, lactic acid bacteria and photosynthesis bacteria and are not a burden on wastewater or groundwater - on the contrary, the cleaning water can be used to water flowers afterwards.
At the same time, the one hundred percent natural cleaners are absolutely effective: The surfaces are freshly polished after wiping and the effective microorganisms have an antistatic effect, which has the advantage that dust does not collect so easily on the smooth surfaces again. Guests and employees confirm the pleasant indoor climate.
Since switching to EM, the Rehlegg saves tons of chemical cleaning agents every year. In addition, EM Chiemgau, a Bavarian company, supplies the organic cleaning agents, which is fully in line with the hotel's regional responsibility.
„As a sustainable hotel, our expectation of cleaning agents is: absolutely hygienic and fully environmentally friendly. EM meets this perfectly.“
Franz Lichtmannegger
Owner Berghotel Rehlegg
Turning an Alp into a Sustainable Wellness Hotel
Formerly a simple farmhouse, Sebastian Lichtmannegger acquired the property for himself and his family in 1917. In addition to farming, he and his wife also ran a small haulage business. Even then they rented out guest rooms: in 1938 the Rehlegg had 30 beds, and an overnight stay with breakfast cost 2.40 Reichsmark. And at the same time, a stay was sometimes even glamorous, because the farm often served as a filming location for numerous movies of the popular German “Heimatfilm”-genre, which was all the rage back then.
To live up to their mission statement, the two cousins Hannes and Franz turned the traditional house upside down over decades and transformed it into a sustainable, luxurious wellness hotel with 87 rooms and suites, restaurants, outdoor pool, indoor pool, a large SPA area and an even larger sauna landscape. The former farmhouse still stands in its place: in the breathtaking backdrop of the Alps, in the middle of the Berchtesgadener Land biosphere region and with the national park right on its doorstep.
The Fact Check
Selection of Sustainable Measures at Berghotel Rehlegg
The Berghotel Rehlegg supports the reforestation in the climate hotel forest in Panama to leave a positive carbon footprint.
At the same time, the team also plants trees by themselves during the regular tree planting campaigns on site in Ramsau.
The hotel website is carbon neutral.
In addition, the hotel offsets its CO2 consumption through humus certificates and in cooperation with local partners.
E-cars and e-charging stations are available for guests.
A photovoltaic system is used to generate energy - a good investment thanks to the optimal hotel location on a sunny south-facing slope.
Two combined heat and power plants supply energy and heat, among other things for the indoor pool.
The hotel relies on green housekeeping with cleaning agents that work with effective microorganisms and are even supplied from the neighboring Chiemgau region.
In her own "laboratory", the Rehlegg Herb Fairy produces her own natural cosmetics which can also be bought for at home in the hotel shop.
Plastic is avoided throughout the house wherever possible. Instead, reusable packaging and containers are used.
The basis of the F&B concept is a large supplier network throughout the region.
The Berghotel Rehlegg participates in various regional livestock rearing and has its own bees on the large alpine meadow behind the hotel building.