Insider travel secrets: How to identify an eco-friendly hotel
Sustainable tourism should go beyond your luxury travel accommodation washing your bedsheets less
Text: Christian Barker
These days, virtually every resort on earth talks the talk about sustainability, whether that be a wellness retreat, luxury travel hotel or meditation sanctuary. But do they walk the walk? How can we tell whether they’re serious about reducing environmental impact and being more ethical? The COO of Six Senses, one of the world’s most eco-conscious hospitality operators, Guy Heywood says prior to check-in, it’s no simple task for members of the public to gauge a hotel’s commitment to sustainability.
“How does the average guest know whether a hotel is ‘greenwashing’ or whether they’re genuine?” Heywood asks rhetorically. “They don’t, really. Not until they get there and can really have a look around and see what the hotel is doing,” insofar as sustainability initiatives go.
Clicks and ticks
Guy says one sign of ecological authenticity guests can look out for before booking a room is a tab prominently displayed on the hotel’s homepage, clicking through to a clear statement of sustainability initiatives, philosophy and goals.
Another positive is the presence of accreditations from Earthcheck or LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design). These organisations appraise a hotel’s efforts in areas including the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, conservation of water and other resources, energy efficiency, waste management, air quality, sensitive land use and ecosystem conservation.
While Guy believes Earthcheck, LEED and numerous other similar organisations are doing worthy work, he would like to see the travel industry settle upon a definitive, globally recognised system of grading hotels. “A universal standard of measuring sustainability would make it much easier for the consumer to reach a judgment,” he says.
Cultural learnings
The founding general manager of Amanpuri and the acclaimed Trisara resort on Phuket, Anthony Lark has long been a passionate advocate of sustainability in hospitality. He says one very simple way of judging whether a hotel is legitimate in its eco-friendly efforts is to suss out how much time, effort and funds they’re devoting to the area.
“Effective sustainability has to be a culture, with someone in the organisation given responsibility and importantly, authority,” Anthony says. “Serious hotels are the ones where the owner allocates resources, and the GM allocates staff and treats sustainability like any other department, with goals, a budget, tasks, meetings and so forth.”
When you telephone a hotel, any person you speak with should be able to instantly and confidently answer questions you may have about the property’s commitment to sustainability. This indicates that those values are tightly woven into the corporate DNA and regularly communicated to staff.
As a prospective guest, if you ask a member of the hotel team, “Who’s in charge of your sustainability initiatives?” and they answer, “Um, no one in particular,” that’s not good. Conversely, if the reply is, “Allow me to put you in touch with our Director of Sustainability,” it’s a very positive sign — particularly in these straitened times, when most hotels are cutting overheads and such a role could easily be viewed as surplus to requirements.
Keeping it real
After you’ve checked in somewhere, Anthony says, “You can quickly tell they are serious (about sustainability) if you see no plastic in the rooms, water is provided in reusable glass bottles, laundry comes back without plastic wrapping, and there’s a document where the management outlines to guests all the (eco-focused) actions they take, so that guests can feel part of the experience.”
A hotel’s steps toward sustainable tourism should be announced subtly, like they’re the most natural, normal thing in the world — which of course, today, they are. Anthony continues, “When I see a loud PR effort hyping what they’re doing, that’s a red flag.”
This is especially so when a hotel is shouting about token efforts, such as eliminating plastic straws, or asking you to ‘save the planet’ by forgoing the daily washing of towels and sheets. “In many cases, that’s just a way for them to save costs by not paying to clean the linens,” he says.
A hotel’s approach to food and beverage service gives myriad signals about how much the planet means to the establishment. Most obvious: are they hellbent on selling you $12 bottles of imported European H2O, or have they invested in a quality water filtration system?
Equally, whether or not you’re a vegetarian, take a look how many plant-based dining options are available on a menu. Ample veg-skewed cuisine displays a commitment to reducing the carbon emissions that result from meat production.
In a hotel restaurant or room service, “Ideally you want to see no plastic bags, no cling wrap, no buffets, and you want assurance that food has been purchased from only certified sustainable suppliers,” says Emmanuel Benardos, general manager of food and beverage at the Fairmont hotel and Swissotel The Stamford in Singapore.
Farm and function
Best yet is when produce — or at least, a good share of it — comes from the hotel’s own on-site farms, as is the case at the Fairmont and Swissotel, which operate an urban aquaponics farm on the highrise’s fifth floor, growing vegetables and fruit, and breeding fish. Trisara also has its own farm, as do most of the Six Senses resorts, many in the Capella group and numerous Alila hotels, including perhaps the world’s most Instagrammed resort, Alila Uluwatu.
Formerly helming development at Alila for a decade, Arjan De Boer is a founding partner at hotel design, development and management company, InSitu Asia, and hotelier at Bali’s Origin Collection and Aria Villas. In judging the eco bona fides of a hotel’s built environment, he says, “I am always looking out to see whether the resort has used a lot of locally available building materials. For example, local river stones for the walking paths, buggy path and garden retaining walls; timber that’s been responsibly sourced and licensed domestically; and signage throughout the resort from natural sources.”
Whether it’s food, amenities, building materials or staff, a truly sustainable hotelier will be looking to fulfil as many of their needs as possible locally. They’ll be interacting with the environment in a sensitive way, engaging with and hiring from the local community — and giving back.
“Maybe 20 years ago,” Guy recalls, “luxury hospitality was all about importing Italian marble and French cosmetics. Nowadays, it’s all about using local, finding the great little artisan down the road, using stone from the local quarry. That’s really good, that is the way it should be.”
And these are some of the potent low-key cues you need to look for, in order to figure out which hotels are committed to sustainability — versus those that just want to save on laundry.
