By Charu Suri
More luxury hotels are getting eco-friendly and incorporating some element of the sustainability mindset into their design process. With sustainable materials including minerals and wood now being employed by architects and designers in greater quantities, hotels too have adopted a similar mindset of improving their carbon footprint and using more local materials as well as indigenous plants to grow in their gardens.
Here are some design-centric hotels contributing to bettering the planet:
Ace Hotels: What started as a transformation of a Seattle halfway house in 1999 has evolved into a trendy collection of hotels mostly in the United States. Today, the Ace hotels pride themselves on being true artistic communities, looping in through live performances and fostering pop-ups. The style and furnishing of each Ace property is designed to reflect its location. The hotel in Palm Springs is a converted Howard Johnson motel; New York has interiors designed by Roman and Williams; and the Ace Chicago is the chain’s first building constructed from scratch. To creatively help the planet, Ace Hotelstakes the retired linens from their properties and gives it to Everybody.Worldto turn into something new at Atelier Ace. The resulting items are simple reminders of humankind’s collective capacity for limitless change and are beautifully chic. Going green has never been more stylish.
Nanuku, Auberge Resorts, Fiji:The Auberge resort properties have had an eco-friendly mindset at the onset: the brand recently won a green spa sustainability award, and recently Nanuku, a private 550-acre coastal estate on the main Fiji island of Vitu Levu, introduced more activities like wild honey harvesting to further its eco mindset. This resort compels you to snorkel among coral, hunt for crabs in a dense mangrove forest and also trek up sand dunes. Designed by GroundsKent Architects, the villa-filled property has a Polyenesian vibe to it with thatched roofs and infinity pools that blend with the surrounding water. The resort also maintains an organic nursery with over 25 indigenous plants which draw less water resources.
Solaz, a Luxury Collection Resort, Mexico:This fairly new kid on the block opened in September 2018 as the first hotel in Baja California Sur for the collection. Located at the confluence of Cabo San Lucas and San José del Cabo, this resort was designed by Mexico City-based Sordo Madaleno Architects.Celebrating the distinctive endemic landscape of Baja, the resort features a sustainable lush “dry jungle” with 80% endemic flora including indigenous cacti and endangered plant species and flowers, specifically chosen to thrive in this region. There are no palm trees featured on Solaz Resort grounds, so the water consumption for this “dry jungle” is minimal at best.
Four Seasons Punta Mita, Mexico: With 177 Mexican-inspired guest rooms as well as casitas and suites, this property is surrounded by a rugged natural beauty on the Riviera Nayarit and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, Las Marietas Island right off the shore. The property also has an onsite residual water treatment plant and has replaced standard air conditioning units with “magnetic levitation chillers” that work according to the needs –not full capacity—of guests from the start.
Ka’anapali Beach Hotel, Maui, Hawaii: Through their campaign for environmental sustainability, The Green Project, which started in 1987 with an active recycling program, this hotel in Maui is really dedicated to conserving energy and making their footprint environmentally friendly. The Ka’anapali Beach Hotel also plants Taro, sweet potato and lemongrass on the hotel’s garden to further reduce carbon emissions and has taken the steps to reduced water consumption property-wide from guest rooms to lawn sprinklers, as well as promoting reef-safe sunscreen to protect the coral reef and raise guests’ awareness. According to results of a 2016 survey conducted by the County of Maui for the 15 largest hotels on Maui, Ka’anapali Beach Hotel’s energy usage per room is 60 percent less than other hotels.
