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  • 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!

This is one of the world's most eco-friendly resorts on the planet.

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