The organizers of the 33rd annual Hotel Investment Conference Asia Pacific (HICAP) are pleased to announce the winners for the HICAP 2023 Sustainable Hotel Awards. HICAP will be held 23-25 October 2023 at the Fairmont Singapore & Swissotel The Stamford.
The annual HICAP Sustainable Hotel Awards are designed to recognize hotels in the Asia Pacific region creating innovative new methods, strategies, and technologies to face today’s sustainable development challenge, while providing tangible examples of sustainable best practices that can be replicated and adapted across the region.
In the category of Building, Renovation, Preservation, Adaptive Reuse, & Conversion, the winner is The Tamara Kodai in India. The Tamara Kodai is a 53-room resort located in Kodaikanal in the Nadu state in South-East India. A preservation which serves as example of a sustainable reuse which shows how to align luxury, modern hospitality trends and responsible tourism. The resort preservation transformed a heritage building complex built in 1840 into a luxury retreat. The renovation takes reference to the past, celebrating the original tribes living here and recognizing the more recent history of the place. The heritage building complex has been preserved with care, implementing the use of the original techniques and materials, new building extensions are built to follow the same. Many active sustainable strategies are in place to save energy and water. The resort is also committed to social sustainability supporting the local communities. About 40% of the products used in the resort are produced locally and 50% of their associates are from the local community.
In the category of Climate & Biodiversity Action the winner is Soneva Fushi in the Maldives. The Soneva Fushi 72-villa resort in Baa Atoll in the Maldives established carbon neutrality in 2012 to cover its full scope 1, 2 & 3 emissions – including guest flights. After first installing 2.5MWp of solar PV, Soneva is adding 1.9MWp of solar PV and 2.5MW capacity of battery storage, to cover 50% of its electricity. Using a guestroom environmental levy, Fushi offsets its carbon footprint via projects mitigating over 800,00 tons of CO2 and benefitting 350,000 people. These initiatives focus on biodiversity, providing cooking stoves to communities in Myanmar to reduce deforestation. Soneva Fushi embarked on a coral projection and restoration initiative, setting up a nursery of 50,000 fragments, establishing a biodiversity science centre designed to replicate the natural environment, rescuing over 29,000 coral colonies from dredging, and installing 28 micro-fragmenting tanks. This and many other initiatives are in place at Soneva Fushi via its Total Impact Assessment approach.
In the category of Positive Community Impact, the winner is Cempedak Island in Indonesia. Located in the Riau Archipelago, the 20-villa Cempedak Island aims to have a positive impact for all stakeholders. Through the lack of waste management solutions, plastic pollution has historically been a threat to the community, endangering the local biodiversity that they rely on for livelihoods, nutrition and wellness. Cempedak has partnered with Seven Clean Seas to establish a non-profit to remove plastic waste, create waste management projects and provide fair formalised jobs for the local community. They have also established a materials recovery facility, which is researching how to reduce ocean plastic and return what is collected to the circular economy. The project employs 79 community members as part of their clean-up crews and has removed 780 tonnes of ocean plastic. It has extended to two other islands. Seven Clean Seas also help companies measure plastic use, conceptualise solutions and offset remaining plastic by investing in the collection and recycling of ocean plastics.
In the category of Sustainable Design, the winner is Six Senses Vana in India. The Six Senses Vana is located in Dehradun, North India. Certified LEED Platinum in 2015. Operation and architecture are designed to minimize their impact on the site. A clear design aesthetic includes sustainable materials and strategies, neutral palette, large openings to allow natural light in and to frame the views, evoking a sense of comfort and wellbeing. FSC Certified timber and low VOC paint have been specified throughout. The uniforms, bed and bath linens are made of organic Indian cotton. Many sustainability strategies are implemented: motion-detection systems, “inn Com Control”, BMS system, 100% LED lighting, solar panels, heat pumps and energy efficient equipment. Rainwater is collected for irrigation, gray water is recycled, low flow faucets reduce water consumption, and a bottling plant eliminates the use of plastic bottles. Clearly looking at all this, we see how for this property sustainability is not a checklist but a way of life.
Please visit the HICAP website for additional information, www.HICAPconference.com.