How can hotels reduce their energy and water consumption?
How can they reduce waste?
How can they use resources including human waste efficiently?
We're in northern Germany, on the Baltic coast, in Gelting, near the town of Flensburg.
This farm was converted into a hotel in 2006.
Fairhaus hotel is popular with German vacationers.
Seven rooms are available, each furnished in tasteful Nordic design.
The hotel was built to minimize guests CO2 footprint.
This was important to hotel owners Uta and Stephan Janbeck.
Their establishment is classified as climate-neutral.
So how does it work?
For example, organic produce from local farms keeps transport routes
short and CO2 emissions low.
In 2004, the hotel switched from fossil fuels to solar power.
And it has halved its water use, too.
Here, all human waste flushed down the toilets is recycled.
And ends up in a tank behind the barn.
Checking on its contents isn't something Stephan enjoys.
But it must be done -- every two weeks in summer, and every 4 to 6 weeks in winter.
The reeds behind the house are not just pretty to look at.
They also serve a purpose.
Microorganisms along the roots filter and clean wastewater.
The filtered water is collected in a tank.
This water is used to flush the hotel toilets, run washing machines and dishwashers.
Uta Janbeck uses the self-produced humus for her gardening.
She grows fruit, vegetables, flowers and herbs, which she turns into culinary treats.
Fairhaus hotel specializes in sweet spreads and savory chutneys -- all of them homemade.
Only seasonal products are used.
And because everything is freshly made, there's hardly any packaging that needs disposing.
Even the bread is homemade.
It's the winter season, so only a few guests are staying at the hotel.
So, she waits until enough self produced electricity is available.
Most of it is generated through the hotel's solar panels.
When there's not enough electricity, the hotel also relies on a biogas-powered generator.
Guests who don't have a car and want to go on day trips can rent an electric car from the hotel.
This also helps reduce the hotel's overall CO2 footprint.
A guest at a conventional hotel generates somewhere between 14 and 47 kilograms of CO2
per person per night – at the Fairhaus, it's just 3 kilograms.
Uta loves living in harmony with nature.
That's why she enjoys spending time in the patch of land behind their house.
Uta and Stephan enjoy sharing their know-how with hotel guests and are in constant contact
with other eco-hotels.
Their establishment belongs to a network of 10 German hotels that operate according to
strict eco-standards.
Their CO2 emissions are regularly vetted – Fairhaus hotel is among the most
sustainable of them all.
Uta und Stephan hope more hotels will go down this road . They re convinced that every small
effort helps in making tourism more sustainable.