Correspondents Notes from the World of Environmental Design
...from environmental design observers around the world.
Thursday, December 30, 2004
Environmental Hotels in SE Asia
In the summer of 2000, I had the opportunity to vist Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, and Sri Lanka in search of examples of environmental hotels.
The final third of my visit was a professional sojourn to Sri Lanka to assist the Confifi Group Hotels assess and shift their business practices to a more sustainable path. They saw the opportunity to have a "inexpensive" grad student assist them as more than worth it. Over 3 weeks I was offered the opportunity to look inside one of the largest hospitality companies in the country.
I began by trying to understand what was driving this company and in particular this Director (Mr. F. Anzar) to embrace environmental change and promote it as feverishly as he did. He admitted that his daughter was enthralled with environmental studies at school and that sparked his interest (concluding there is power in our children). But he also told me in not as many words that the Aitken Spence Group and in particular the Kandalama Hotel had changed the market for 5 star hotels in Sri Lanka. With the arrival of the much acclaimed Kandalama, European tourists and even more importantly European tour companies were beginning to demand a minimum environmental standard in the companies that they dealt with. So in this case money was talking.
European vacationers were unknowingly changing an industry half a world away for the good. At the Confifi Group, although the focus was to be the 5-star Eden Hotel, the trickle down effect meant that I was to examine the whole "fleet" of hotels and in fact other business units including a fish farm. To my satisfaction, not only did the director push for this holistic view of the company and the environment, but the people at the management and engineering level did as well!
In the end, over 100 managers, staff, and employees through to the gardeners and kitchen staff sat through 6 hour environmental workshops on two different occassions in 2000 and 2001. An environmental policy was developed and purchasing, engineering, and landscaping departments were beginning to formulate a management system to deal with environmental problems.
Unfortunately, the armed conflict and more recently tsunami have likely slowed the evolution of the Confifi Hotel Group into a truly environmentally operated company although I have no doubt they have come a long way already.
More to come...
NOTE: My thoughts are with the Confifi Staff after the first floor was inundated by the Tsunami
Alex Joseph
The final third of my visit was a professional sojourn to Sri Lanka to assist the Confifi Group Hotels assess and shift their business practices to a more sustainable path. They saw the opportunity to have a "inexpensive" grad student assist them as more than worth it. Over 3 weeks I was offered the opportunity to look inside one of the largest hospitality companies in the country.
I began by trying to understand what was driving this company and in particular this Director (Mr. F. Anzar) to embrace environmental change and promote it as feverishly as he did. He admitted that his daughter was enthralled with environmental studies at school and that sparked his interest (concluding there is power in our children). But he also told me in not as many words that the Aitken Spence Group and in particular the Kandalama Hotel had changed the market for 5 star hotels in Sri Lanka. With the arrival of the much acclaimed Kandalama, European tourists and even more importantly European tour companies were beginning to demand a minimum environmental standard in the companies that they dealt with. So in this case money was talking.
European vacationers were unknowingly changing an industry half a world away for the good. At the Confifi Group, although the focus was to be the 5-star Eden Hotel, the trickle down effect meant that I was to examine the whole "fleet" of hotels and in fact other business units including a fish farm. To my satisfaction, not only did the director push for this holistic view of the company and the environment, but the people at the management and engineering level did as well!
In the end, over 100 managers, staff, and employees through to the gardeners and kitchen staff sat through 6 hour environmental workshops on two different occassions in 2000 and 2001. An environmental policy was developed and purchasing, engineering, and landscaping departments were beginning to formulate a management system to deal with environmental problems.
Unfortunately, the armed conflict and more recently tsunami have likely slowed the evolution of the Confifi Hotel Group into a truly environmentally operated company although I have no doubt they have come a long way already.
More to come...
NOTE: My thoughts are with the Confifi Staff after the first floor was inundated by the Tsunami
Alex Joseph
Archives
September 2004 December 2004 January 2005
