The adage “Leave it better than you found it” is no longer limited to campgrounds. It now applies to all destinations, whether that be a sandy stretch of South Beach, a pristine Zurich hilltop or the wetlands of the Chesapeake Bay. Properties should act as gracious hosts to guests and land, treating both with care and consideration.
High-end hotels understand the importance of responsible travel now more than ever. Many have made it their mission to let guests know what they’re doing onsite to ease the workload on Mother Nature.However, it can still be a challenge for travelers to determine if the property they choose is upholding its sustainable principles.
Hervé Houdré, Forbes Travel Guide’s Global Ambassador for Responsible Hospitality, envisions that the standards established through FTG’s Responsible Hospitality VERIFIED program “will be the bridge between the guests, the travel advisors, the corporations and the hotels.” Two properties below have already earned their stamp for the substantial steps they’ve taken to lessen their carbon footprint.
In honor of Earth Day (April 22) and Earth Month, we spotlight 13 luxury stays that prove that sustainability does not require a sacrifice of sophistication.
The Four-Star property earned Forbes Travel Guide’s first Responsible Hospitality VERIFIED badge, which is based on 100-plus stringent environmental standards covering food and water waste, sustainable amenities, recycling programs, energy usage, health security, integration with the local community and culture and other touchpoints. It is a testament to the harmonious coexistence of luxury and sustainability at the Southern California resort. The Five-Star Spa Ojai, for instance, has eradicated single-use plastics, while the hotel’s Four-Star restaurant, Olivella, sources ingredients from local farmers and grows herbs in the property’s gardens. The resort’s stunning pools employ native plants and a retention pond to create a natural irrigation system. Guests also gather for a beloved community tradition, a 5K Turkey Trot, supporting the Ojai Valley Land Conservancy each year.
The Five-Star Dolder Grand, also a Responsible Hospitality VERIFIED property, has been perched on its Zurich hilltop since 1889. And it plans to stay, as evidenced by the hotel’s commitment to sustainability. The Dolder Grand generates all its electricity using hydropower, earning it an impressive CO2-neutral certification. On a smaller yet equally significant scale, guests will find luxurious linens woven in Europe, potted plants instead of cut flowers in guest rooms, seasonal and regional ingredients on dinner plates and a fleet of eco-friendly e-bikes and hybrid and electric vehicles at their disposal.
Bucuti & Tara Beach Resort, Aruba
The Forbes Travel Guide Recommended Aruba resort earned the Global United Nations 2020 Climate Neutral Now Award and the 2023 Energy Globe Award for initiatives like reusing water from sinks and showers for the grounds, employing solar power to heat water in guest rooms and the laundry, boasting the lowest per-occupied-room electricity usage of all hotels on the island along with supporting community wildlife conservation efforts like Aruba’s Donkey Sanctuary and a local foundation dedicated to the protection of sea turtles.
With a location in the preserved land of the Osa Peninsula in Costa Rica’s rainforest, this Four-Star hotel takes its job as steward of the land seriously, achieving a carbon-negative status. It offsets more carbon than it emits by protecting 160 acres of untouched forest that absorbs and stores CO2 and employs renewable energy sources like solar-based water heating.
This trail-blazing, eco-friendly, Five-Star French Polynesia escape utilizes a pioneering AC cooling system where cold water gets pumped from the deep ocean. This allows the resort to reduce the energy used for its air conditioning system by 90 percent and overall energy by 45 percent. It also adopts other sustainable practices, such as composting all food waste for its garden, reusing wastewater for irrigation and relying on solar panels.
The Four-Star 1 Hotel South Beach exemplifies the brand’s strong stance on eco-consciousness. The raw materials, reclaimed wood and locally sourced coral stone created a hotel designed around sustainability. This eco-friendly ethos informs all property elements, including the artworks made from recovered ocean plastics, the 12,000-plant green wall that helps carbon offsets and the National Wildlife Federation-certified garden sanctuary.
As Forbes Travel Guide’s inaugural Responsible Hospitality award winner at its 2023 Summit, the Four-Star Dubai hotel earned the honor through its investment in green initiatives, such as the development of an onsite water-bottling plant that will allow it to eliminate single-use plastics (preventing the use of 2.7 million plastic bottles each year), decreasing the resort’s waste by 95 percent with food waste-reduction technology, relying on locally sourced and sustainable ingredients whenever possible and aiding in local marine conservation projects.
This year’s Responsible Hospitality award recipient, the Four-Star Amilla Maldives, located in a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, implements measures to ensure that future generations can enjoy the island’s beauty. Some of the resort’s initiatives include desalinating the drinking water to eliminate single-use plastic water bottles, providing guests with reusable silicone water bottles at the airport, getting 14 percent of its overall energy from solar panels (which is merely the first phase of a bigger solar energy plan), harvesting ingredients for the kitchen and spa from the island’s natural resources and offering a nesting sanctuary for the white-tailed tropic bird. The resort was the first in the Maldives to study the bird’s nesting behavior, a crucial component in protecting the species.
Thanks to this Forbes Travel Guide Recommended Irvington, Virginia hotel’s $3.6 million restoration project for the wetlands of the Chesapeake Bay, the 3,000 migratory and wildlife species that populate the area can continue to thrive with the creation of a “living shoreline” consisting of preserved and newly planted trees, native shoreline vegetation and an oyster reef. Guests are invited to embark on ecological adventures with guided tidal trail hikes, apiary workshops led by the resident beekeeper and birding experiences.
Zemi Beach House Anguilla, LXR Hotels & Resorts
The Forbes Travel Guide Recommended hotel sits on a pristine stretch of the island that gets more than its share of sunshine. Rather than let those good rays go to waste, the resort built a multi-million-dollar solar farm (more than 2,700 panels) across the street that generates 100 percent of the resort’s daytime power, making it the only resort in the Caribbean that can make such a claim. That the property also has air conditioning with smart tech to adjust room temperatures when doors are left open, collects rainwater for landscape irrigation and serves locally caught seafood in its restaurants is just further proof of its commitment to the planet.
The Five-Star Maldives hotel’s Soneva Foundation has embarked on impressive projects to ensure the health of the environment, community and local economy. Not only limited to the hotel’s remarkable sustainability measures — ensuring carbon neutrality, sourcing ingredients from the property’s organic garden and fostering dialogue between top environmentalists and island council presidents of three local communities — the foundation creates positive change around the world using funding from the carbon tax placed on guests.
Launched in 2004 and unique in the region, the Five-Star Dubai hotel’s turtle rehabilitation facility rescues and cares for injured or sick tortoises before releasing them back into their natural habitat. The facility has saved and released 2,050 turtles. Guests can dial a toll-free hotline if they come across a turtle needing rescue. To celebrate the project’s success, the hotel offers a “Turtle Tea,” with sculptures made with recycled materials by Dubai-based, French-Tunisian artist Idriss B, paired with vegan treats and information about the significance of the rehabilitation project.
Founded as a sanctuary of well-being for the Earth and a haven for immersive wellness programs, this Five-Star Maldives escape also provides a refuge for turtles with three rehabilitation and conservation centers created in partnership with the Olive Ridley Project. The resort allows you to forge a meaningful connection with the gentle creatures with visits to the rehabilitation tank to assist marine biologists as they care for the turtles. You can even adopt one of the rescue center’s inhabitants, and you’ll receive monthly updates until the turtle is well enough to return to the wild.