The Art of Ethical Retreats · The Retreat Academy
RA
For leaders and guests
A guide to travelling — and hosting — with integrity

The Art of
Ethical

Retreats.

A practical framework for choosing — or running — a retreat that actually gives back, plus what it really means to show up as a great, conscious guest once you're there. Environmental impact, fair pay, where your money really goes, and the small daily choices that add up to real respect.

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The Retreat
Academy
Sound familiar?

You want your retreat to do good in the world... not just look good on Instagram.

"Eco" and "ethical" get used to sell almost anything these days — a bamboo water bottle, a sunset photo, a venue with a compost bin. It's genuinely hard to tell what's real and what's just good branding.

And it's not only a leader problem. Your guests want to travel consciously too — they just don't always know what that looks like once they've landed.

  • –You don't know what questions to actually ask a venue before you book them
  • –"Eco-friendly" marketing can hide low wages, imported staff, and money that never touches the local economy
  • –You've never had a clear framework for any of this — just a gut feeling and a hope for the best
  • –Your guests arrive wanting to be respectful but genuinely unsure what that means in practice
The Retreat Academy · Ethical Framework

Ethics for the ones who host.
Ethics for the ones who attend.

Most guides stop at "choose a sustainable venue" and leave it there. This one goes further — it gives you an honest framework for assessing any retreat venue on its real impact, and it gives your guests a clear, warm sense of what it actually means to be a great person to have in the room.

Five parts. No greenwashing, no guilt-tripping — just the questions worth asking, and the answers worth caring about.

01
Assess
Environmental Impact
Carbon footprint, resource use, waste management, biodiversity — the honest questions to ask a venue before you commit, and how to weigh a long-haul retreat against one closer to home.
"could this retreat happen closer to home?"
02
Assess
Fair Pay & Community
Wages, working conditions, local hiring, sourcing, cultural respect. How to tell whether a venue actually supports the people around it — or just photographs well with them in the background.
"good value shouldn't mean someone else pays the price"
03
Assess
Where Your Money Really Goes
Profit flow, fair pricing, community investment. The questions that reveal whether your retreat fee stays local or quietly leaves the country the moment you fly home.
"follow the money before you follow the itinerary"
04
Assess
Inclusion & Access
Diversity in leadership, representation, tiered pricing, and physical accessibility. What it actually looks like when a retreat is built for more than one kind of guest.
"who gets left out of the brochure?"
05
Practise
Being A Great Guest
This is the part most guides leave out entirely. Practical, unpreachy guidance for retreatees — how to spend locally, respect culture without performing it, minimise your footprint, and show up with the kind of humility that makes you welcome, not just present.
"a guest, not a customer"
"Conscious retreating is possible. It's never more rewarding than knowing you've created something genuinely good — for your guests, and for the place that's holding you."
The Retreat Academy
Who this guide is for

Built for anyone who wants their retreat to be a force for good

  • You're a retreat leader choosing a venue and want an honest framework, not a hunch
  • You've been burned by "eco" marketing that didn't hold up once you looked closer
  • You want to brief your guests on how to show up well, without sounding preachy
  • You're planning to attend a retreat yourself and want to travel with real intention
  • You believe a retreat should leave the place it's held in better off, not just your guests
Not for everyone
✕Anyone looking for a tick-box excuse to call something "eco"
✕Leaders who aren't willing to ask their venue a few honest questions
✕Guests who see local culture as a photo backdrop rather than something to respect

Everything inside
the guide

01
The Ethical Assessment Framework
A complete checklist across environment, community, money, and inclusion — for vetting any retreat venue, anywhere.
02
Straight questions to ask any venue
The exact things to ask before you book — wages, sourcing, ownership, accessibility — without it feeling like an interrogation.
03
The Great Guest guide
New content, built for your retreatees — how to spend locally, respect culture, and travel lightly, in plain, warm language you can share directly.
04
A "follow the money" worksheet
A simple way to trace whether your retreat fee actually benefits the local economy — or quietly doesn't.
05
Inclusion & accessibility checklist
Practical prompts for building a retreat that welcomes more than one kind of guest.
06
Instant PDF download
Beautifully designed, yours to keep and return to before every retreat you host or attend.
Written by

The Retreat Academy

Written at Erth Barton, a Jacobean manor on the Erth Peninsula in Cornwall — home to Erth Retreat and The Retreat Academy. As retreat leaders and venue owners with 20 years of experience, we've asked most of these questions of our own venue, and had plenty asked of us.

This guide is our honest answer to "what does ethical actually mean here?" — built for the leaders choosing where to go, and the guests deciding how to show up once they arrive.

"I used this before booking our venue abroad and it completely changed the questions I asked. We ended up choosing somewhere genuinely community-run — and it made the whole retreat feel different."

Retreat Leader · The Circle Retreat Collective
Your investment

One guide.
Every retreat, more conscious.

Stop guessing at what "ethical" really means. Get the framework once, use it for every venue you choose and every guest you welcome.

The Retreat Academy · Ethical Retreats Guide
£29
one-time investment · instant access
  • The full Ethical Assessment Framework
  • Straight questions to ask any venue
  • The Great Guest guide for your retreatees
  • Follow-the-money worksheet
  • Inclusion & accessibility checklist
  • Instant download · lifetime access
Or get everything inside The Circle ↓

If this guide doesn't change how you choose or run a retreat, reply to any email and we'll make it right.

Want to go deeper?

This guide lives inside The Circle

The guide gives you the framework. The Circle gives you the community to put it into practice alongside. A membership for retreat leaders who want ongoing mentorship, peer accountability, and first access to everything The Retreat Academy creates.

Built around the same principles as this guide: relational, unhurried, deeply practical. This is not another course. It's a room of people who actually understand what you're doing and why it matters.

  • —Monthly live sessions with Polly Moore
  • —First access to all new frameworks, templates, and resources
  • —A private community of retreat leaders — peer support and real conversation
  • —Hot seat sessions: bring your real challenges, leave with real next steps
  • —This guide included in your first month
£45
per month

The guide is included in your first month — no need to purchase separately.

Questions

A few things people ask

Is this just for leaders, or can I share it with guests too?+
Both. The assessment framework is written for you as a leader, and the Great Guest section is written in plain language you can send straight to your retreatees before they travel.
My retreat is in the UK — is this still relevant?+
Yes. Wages and working conditions are more regulated in the UK and much of Europe, but questions of sourcing, community investment, and inclusion still matter everywhere — and the Great Guest guidance applies to any retreat, anywhere.
Will this make me feel guilty about retreats I've already run?+
No — that's not the intention. This is a forward-looking framework, not a scorecard for the past. Most leaders find it clarifying rather than critical.
What format do I receive?+
A beautifully designed PDF, instantly downloadable after purchase. Lifetime access means it's yours to keep and return to before every retreat.
Do I need the Arrivals guide or the funnel templates too?+
Not at all — this stands alone. But if you want the full set, all three are included inside The Circle.
The Retreat Academy

Do good.
Travel deeper.

Stop guessing at what "ethical" really means. Get the framework — for you and for your guests.

Get the guide — £29 →
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Erth Barton · Erth Peninsula · Cornwall
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The Art of Ethical Retreats
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