PHI PHI ISLAND, 21 June 2017: An island blighted by overtourism and a bay closed to save its marine life, is home to a resort that claims to adhere to strict green practices.
Zeavola Resort in Thailand general manager, Florian Hallermann, is not slow either in sharing his green practices having written what is technically a “little green book” for resort owners.
The book on how to manage a green resort is available in an e-book PDF format from the hotel’s website.
Hallermanns says his handy guide will make tropical beach resorts environmentally friendly.
Called Zeavola’s Little Green Book, it attempts to serve as a practical manual, cultural primer, and inspirational guide to running a small villa resort in an age of environmental accountability and cultural sensitivity.
The 42-page downloadable PDF shows how Hallermann and his 130 dedicated staff have built an ecologically responsible and culturally sympathetic resort. It’s quite an accomplishment for a resort on an island that has been lambasted for its cultural lack of sensitivity and allowing tourism to destroy Maya Bay, the main location for the movie “The Beach”. Maya Bay is now permanently closed to tourists to allow restoration.
Over the last 11 years, Hallermann claims to have led by example and cultivated the primacy of learning, adapting, understanding and respecting the environment and Thai culture. He has nurtured loyalty, unity, sharing and, in effect, family cohesion among staff.
He is not shy about sharing details on breakthrough results achieved by a Reddonatura wet waste composter, the Chaipattana water aerator, Enviroswim ES3 swimming pool water purifier and a garden shredder.
He acknowledges that the transformative results were achieved by implementing practices recommended by creative engineers and consultants such as Alexander Auer and Alexandre Tsuk of #refillmybottle, among others.
Hallermann says he reduced laundry water consumption by 4000 litres a day, stopped the one-way use of 120,000 plastic bottles annually, saved 260 kg of plastic food packaging a year, and made dozens of more environmental improvements across Zeavola’s hotel operations.
Through Zeavola’s Little Green Book, Hallermann also tips his hat to inspirational partners such as underwater photographer and environmentalist York Hovest, Stefany Seipp at Green Pearls, the PADI team at his resort, and Adrian Grenier of the Lonely Whale Foundation. The latter has declared war on single-use straws with his campaign #stopsucking.
The practical Zeavola’s Little Green Book is available as a download for THB140 (USD5) here with all proceeds being reinvested in green projects at the resort.
