This is one of the world's most eco-friendly resorts on the planet.
In fact, this beach club in Bali was ranked among
the most sustainable venues in the hospitality industry
for its green initiatives.
And I'm not just talking about replacing plastic straws.
Every element from the infrastructure design and logistics are
thought out for the sake of sustainability and minimizing waste
The back of my menu is made out of a mix of tire and flip-flops.
At the beach club entrance is a pile of 5,000 flip flops that were collected
along the shores of Bali beaches and assembled into art.
Even the wood here is all from reclaimed wood from boats.
But I want to know is going green good for business?
I've arrived at the Potato Head Beach resort in Bali, Indonesia.
The archipelagic nation of more than 17,000 islands is the second biggest
polluter of plastic waste in the sea behind China.
In 2018, a video of a British diver swimming through a sea of plastic
in Bali went viral. Just one year earlier a garbage
emergency was declared as swathes of Bali's beaches were
covered in trash. While some local politicians have declared bans on single-
use plastic, enforcing it has been challenging.
But many resorts in Bali are hoping to lead by example.
Potato Head Beach Club was awarded, the "Most Sustainable Bar" award by
Asia's Top 50 Best Bars in 2018. The hospitality industry has been one of
the early adopters of sustainability, encouraging guests to reuse towels
and recycling its soap bars.
Marriott International, the world's largest hotel chain said it plans to phase
out single-use ttoiletries by the end of 2020.
That's the equivalent of about 500 million small bottles of shampoo,
conditioner, and bath gel each year
At Potato Head's security checkpoint, guests are screened for the usual
contrabands such as weapons or explosives and
one other thing: plastic bottles
When you come into Potato Head, the first thing we do is ask you if you have
any single-use plastic water bottles and one of the things is people go,
'Oh, what can I not bring this in?' 'Well, no actually we're single-use plastic free.'
Simon Pestridge is the Chief Experience Officer of Potato Head.
We give them a voucher to be able to buy water when they come in which softens
the blow but actually people really respect it and that kind of opens their
mind to say, 'Oh actually maybe we could all do some things a little bit differently,'
which should be a good start for the planet.
And that sets the tone for the guest experience. No matter where you look there's no
signs of single-use plastic and that's deliberate. There's even a private group
where employees here can actually report anytime they see single-use plastic.
Potato Head says in its effort to be sustainable it also saves money on everyday costs
We're actually running a better business model than if we were just to brush it
under the carpet and say, 'Oh we'll get to that another time.'
The consumer today demands authenticity and they demand sustainable
solutions, so if you're not focused on it, we don't think you'll be in business in a few years.
Here, everything from shampoo to sunscreens and insect repellents
are sourced from the island which means they're cutting on their carbon
footprint by not importing much. Inside the hotel, you'll find soap
dispensers and tissue boxes which are made from these materials,
styrofoam from packaging, bottle caps, limestone, and oyster shells.
While Potato Head offers meat on its menus, its new restaurant
Tanaman is a plant-based Indonesian outlet that hopes to inspire guests
to rethink meat consumption and its effect on the environment.
At Potato Head, we've now achieved 3% waste-to-landfill, so out of all the waste
what we're generating, just 3% of it actually ends up in landfill.
Rushi Krishna is the head of the food and beverage for the resort
The way that we get rid of most of our waste is from pigs. Yeah, we're really lucky on the
island of Bali to have a lot of pigs. So we partner with pig farms and we give
them our food waste and then that gets fed over to the pigs.
Pigs are actually pickier than you might expect they don't eat a lot of stuff,
so coconut husks, banana leaf, lemon peel. Our bar squeezes 20 kilos of lemons a day.
Leftover turmeric cuttings are put in this jar, fermented and then served as part of a drink.
Even its menus are made out of banana trunk, jackfruit leaves, and recycled paper.
Candle wax is made exclusively from used cooking oil and even this glass
is made from its wine bottles.
The biggest education that we do is for our vendors ... people that supply us the produce.
We have the right to refuse here if things are wrapped in plastic.
Then the other one is teaching the staff about plastic waste, about sustainability
and I think they go back to their villages and they take that back with them
and they take it back to their families.
If 97% of their waste is reused or recycled, I'm curious what's not being recycled then.
Then the 3% is primarily paper tissue and also waste from the restrooms and guest waste,
like cigarette butts, cigarette boxes. So, I'd love to say we can get to zero but
without an incinerator, it is a little tricky, but we do our best.
Despite Potato Head achieving such high sustainability rates, here in Bali,
it has two sister restaurants in Singapore and Hong Kong, where they admit things are different.
In these cities, supplies are mass-produced and logistics are streamlined.
Yes, it's probably harder in those cities right now, but it doesn't mean the solutions aren't there.
We just believe that because our footprint is so big here in Bali,
we have to get it right here and then transfer what we can to the other cities.
And the same could be true for massive hotel chains, too.
To younger generation that have disposable income for the first time,
if you don't offer them solutions, why would they come?
For the big chains and the big groups, they have the ability to make big impact,
but it's way harder because their supply chains are so complex.
Indonesia has pledged to reduce ocean plastics by 70% by 2025
and Bali will be the centerpiece of its efforts.
Another tourist hotspot, the Maldives has said it will ban all single-use
plastics by 2025. That is welcome news for Sonu Shivdasani who operates several resorts.
His decision to ban plastic bottles in 2008 led to financial savings.
Ecology is economy, in most cases. Hotels normally spend 20% of their water revenues on
buying branded water. We stopped that, we bottled on site, we saved 18% of our water revenues.
So, instead of spending 20% for that bottle of Evian, it went down to 2%.
So there's a financial saving as well as a big ecological benefit.
Even the consumed alcohol bottles here aren't thrown out or even recycled in a
typical fashion. The resort has an art glass factory on site and specialized
artists from around the world are invited to come and convert waste into art pieces.
So we take our old bottle of Chateau d'Yquem or the Gordon's Gin and turn it into these
works of beauty.
Sonu claims his resort is one of only a few in the world to charge a mandatory 2% carbon tax
to every room bill. That money is then used for carbon offset projects such as planting trees in Thailand or
building windmills in India.
Saving in water revenues have been the result of making changes,
changes the way we do business which has not affected our profitability which has raised a lot of capital for
good causes.
Governments can create the context but companies need to make the change.
Hey guys, it's Uptin, thanks for watching! Check out more of our videos and let me know in the comments, do you
think going green is good for business? While you're at it subscribe to our channel and I'll see you next time!