Our Green Credentials

We took a run-down 98-year-old cottage called the Rosedale, added state of the art sustainable technologies including solar thermal panels, geothermal cooling and heating systems and high performance water equipment and set the foundations for one of the most sustainable cafes in Florida.

As part of the Historic Green Village, we set out to blend the old with the new by taking historic buildings that mean so much to the island and making them great places to visit. The Vilage Cafe at Rosedale opened its doors for the first time on April 9th 2011, and was the first business to open on the Historic Green Village.

The Village Cafe, as with all buildings on the site of the Green Village is heavily insulated with a soya-based foam. Our airconditioning is driven by a cooling reservoir of water 450 feet below the Cafe to reduce the need for energy. Up on the roofs you can see the solar hot water and photovoltaic panels that create the energy from the sun. We use monitors everywhere - even on the coffee pots - to help us reduce our energy use. Our most precious local resource is fresh water, so we aim to use every drop of rainwater that falls.

Our kitchens and bathrooms use filtered rainwater and all the native plantings you see around the Village are watered from underground storm-water cisterns.

But it's not just the recycling of the building itself and the use of the wide range of technologies that demonstrates how sustainable this development is. The Village Cafe is striving to work toward a greener menu, introducing organic and additive free choices and working closely with suppliers to minimize the use of plastic and other packaging.

As owners and developers of the Green Village and the Village Cafe at Rosedale, we want to run a successful business that is completely and utterly green. We want a complete picture, and for us, that's the big challenge now, to make it seamless..seamlessly green!

Click here to read more about the technologies and efficiency measurements that we use throughout the Historic Green Village.