Hi everyone! As our blog comes to a close, we’ll be sharing two of our favourite tourism projects that might just point us towards the future of tourism. In this post, we’ll be introducing The Brando, a resort on the French Polynesian island of Tetiaroa.
Inspired by former island owner Marlon Brando’s vision for sustainable tourism, the resort has engaged in a host of projects to reduce their footprint on the planet as much as possible, pulling all stops to be a ‘clean’ business.
The Brando (Source: The Brando)
Cleaner Power Generation
The resort, through harnessing the power of coconut oil, is fully biofuel capable – this means that the resort eliminates the chances of having any sort of aquatic pollution through oil spills (whereby conventional oil is much more harmful). In terms of heating and cooling of the resort, it has also done exceptionally well in this regard: solar heating provides for all of its hot water, while Sea Water Air Conditioning (SWAC), a process that harnesses the power of cold water from the depth of the sea, helps in the air-conditioning and cooling of the resort as a whole.
A rough idea of how SWAC works (Source: Ocean Thermal Energy Coporation)
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
More than just clean power generation, the resort also takes pride in being clean in terms of the nitty-gritty issues of waste reduction. More than 72% of the waste on the atoll as a whole is diverted from landfills through recycling and reuse, and food waste in particular is converted into compost for the resort’s very own organic garden. On top of this, the resort also recycles its greywater to irrigate the garden as well as provide water for flushing toilets. Another impressive measure taken by the resort has also been in terms of its combat against plastics – they bottle locally-produced drinking water in glass, thereby reducing the resort’s plastic needs by 80%; also, they have phased out plastic straws in favour of paper, natural straw, or even pasta!
The Brando’s very own organic garden (Source: The Brando)
Education for the future
On top of all of their current environmentally-friendly practices, The Brando is also interested in passing on such sentiments down to the next generation. An ‘Ecostation’ on the island has three thrusts – education, in which it works with other organisations in creating public outreach programs to get others interested in local heritage as well as environmental protection; conservation, whereby the society engages in programs like fish replenishment programs and ecosystem monitoring; and finally research, in which they continuously try to innovate new sustainable practices. All of this, then, serves to elevate the status of the resort – it is no longer just a business, but is instead a business for good.
Tourists being green too (Source: The Brando)
The future of tourism?
Could this be the future of tourism – where everything is made to be as green as possible, and where the business owners themselves clearly see themselves as stewards of the environment they have chosen to appropriate? Undoubtedly, the fact that The Brando is a luxury resort – with all of its finances – made all of these efforts possible. Yet, while one might wonder what small-time business owners can do without the financial might of resorts like this, what we’ll say to them is this:
Set sustainability as a core principle, and then do what you can.
For big businesses that have the ability to make a difference (as well as the ability to pollute a lot more), they have no reason to stay out of the shift towards being sustainable. For smaller businesses, though, that can’t afford the technology/profit cut, we encourage them to take baby steps and weave in sustainable practices whenever they can.
Big or small, we all have the agency to do something and effect change.
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References
Ocean Thermal Energy Corporation n.d., Seawater air conditioning, online image, viewed 6 November 2020, https://otecorporation.com/2014/04/17/ocean-thermal-energys-seawater-air-conditioning/
Pacific Beachcomber and The Brando Resort 2019, Sustainability and ESG Report, viewed 6 November 2020, https://fr.calameo.com/read/004500545654d0392cc93
The Brando n.d., The Resort, online image, viewed 6 November 2020, https://thebrando.com/gallery/the-resort/
The Brando n.d., Stewardship, viewed 6 November 2020, https://thebrando.com/stewardship/