Green philosophy

Our carbon reduction commitment

• Targets
• Greening Sri Lanka Hotels
• Renewable energies
• Carbon reduction validation

Managing the carbon footprint by implementing best practices in terms of energy, green cover, transport, resource management and getting involved in replanting the seeds of a healthy environment is one of the key commitments in sustainable policy of the Heritance Kandalama.

We have been having energy, water & waste management programmes always, this was further strengthened introducing other best practices such as renewable energy technologies with substantial investments to reduce carbon emissions. These strategies were implemented as an initiative responding to climate change.

A few of our carbon reduction actions are,

• Energy saving
• Water saving and waste water recycling and reusing
• Waste reduction and recycling and reusing
• Solar power for hot water ( currently under repairing)
• Bio Mass plant replacing thermal power
• Reforestation & not a single tree is cut
• Conservation forest acts as a carbon sink
• Guests and staff participate in various activities

Targets

We monthly monitor the carbon footprint of the hotel & carbon emitted by the guests per guest night. Targets are set and monitoring is done with performance reviewed monthly for continuous improvement. The estimated targets for combine energy and environmental impacts are 10% reduction of total energy consumption, 10% reduction of water consumption and 20% reduction of solid waste

Greening Sri Lanka Hotels

Heritance Kandalama also joined the Greening Sri Lanka Hotels programme conducted by the Ministry of Tourism (MoT), Sri Lanka Sustainable Energy Authority (SLSEA) and the Responsible Tourism Partnership (RTP) to learn new methodologies and share our best practices in optimizing energy efficiency and natural resources sustainability actions with the Sri Lanka’s Hotel industry. We received a special certificate from the Ministers of Environment, Tourism and Energy for ‘Exceptional Contribution to Environment Conservation demonstrating continued efforts in Optimising Energy Efficiency and Natural Resources Sustainability in Sri Lanka hotels industry in 2010’.

Renewable energies

Bio mass plant alone reduces CO2 500 tonnes every year. It is environmentally friendly in many fronts.

• it uses a renewable source instead of a depleting source
• the amount of Carbon dioxide emitted is drastically reduced
• community has a financial benefit when wood is supplied to the hotel
• abandoned and fallow lands are enriched when grown with Grilicedia as the nodules in the roots nitrogenize the soil
• leaves provide fodder for livestock which will again raise the income for the villagers and increase the milk supply in the area thus contributing to better public health and saving of foreign exchange to import powdered milk
• leaves if not used for livestock can be used as mulch to fertilize the soil, prevent erosion and prevent drying up especially in the dry zone.
• This is the best species for dry zone degraded marginal lands which can be harvested every six months.

Carbon reduction validation

We have entered in to a partnership to validate our carbon emission reduction so that we can work towards offering a carbon neutral holiday for our guests.