About Jessie Mac's

Dot, Mairi and Brenda

Tufty the Dog

Mairi, Brenda and Dot

Who Are We?

We’re a team of three – Dot the manager and owner, Mairi the assistant manager and Brenda the other owner. Tufty the dog is the brains behind everything.

What's Different About Us?

We set Jessie Mac’s up in September 2011 with the aim of making it the best and greenest small hostel in Scotland. We bought a traditional B&B with the aim of turning it into a hostel. Guests asked if we could come up with a hybrid – self-catering facilities but still offering breakfasts plus a mixture of shared dorms, private doubles and family rooms. So we did.

Our Ethics

• Staff – we are a Living Wage Employer, we employ local staff, contractors and suppliers wherever possible.
• Community – we’re involved with the local tourist association, volunteer at the Arts Centre, sponsor the local highland games, donate free bed nights to local charities and work really hard to buy everything locally.
• Environment – we are very resource efficient, having almost halved the amount of energy that we use per guest and now recycling 90% of our/your waste. Lots more information below.
• Purchasing – we are a Fairtrade business, buying only fairly traded tea, coffee, sugar and bananas for breakfasts and rooms. We have won a Taste Our Best award recognising that the majority of the produce that we use is Scottish.

Green Business

Sustainability is very important to how we run Jessie Mac's. We try to minimise our/your impact on the environment and support the local economy wherever we can. Here are our environmental policy telling you what our priorities are, an action plan tells you of our future plans and a report of progress to date:

• See our environmental policy here. 
• See our action plan here.
• See our latest progress report here

Green Awards

One of the things that we’re most proud of is attaining Gold level in the Green Tourism Business Scheme.  This ensures that we carefully manage waste, energy, transport, biodiversity, chemical storage, links with our community and our purchasing decisions. As part of this we calculate how many tonnes of CO2 we produce every year (16 tonnes) and then donate a free bed night for each tonne. to locally based conservation charities such as Scottish Wildlife Trust. It’s really hard to get and maintain gold level, so we ask guests to play their part by helping us to be resource efficient when they stay.

In November 2014 we won a national award for how we manage our business’ environmental impacts. We still haven’t come back down to Earth but then we’re constantly trying to get better at what we do.

Environmentally Safe

VIBES Winner Award

Continuous Improvement

We’re constantly trying to make Jessie Mac’s more resource efficient and more comfortable for our guests. The big things that we’re working on in 2016 and 2017 are:

• WIFI - Getting high speed broadband and improving the signal throughout the building
• ENERGY - Installing secondary glazing to make the whole building really cosy
• RECYCING- breaking the 90% recycling barrier.

Suggestions for improvements are always welcome. Let us know ...