Bottom line: Going green is good business for these hotel giants

Newport World Resorts is the first and only EarthCheck Silver Certified integrated resort in the Philippines.

Talk about beauty from inside and out.

That’s the case with some of the country’s leading hotel groups, which have committed to combine sustainability with luxury.

For the five-star City of Dreams Manila, its environmental, social, and governance (ESG) efforts align with the “RISE to go Above and Beyond” sustainability strategy of its parent company, Melco Resorts & Entertainment Ltd. (Melco).

The group’s ambitious environmental goals include achieving carbon neutral and zero-waste resorts by as early as 2030.

This strategy covers the luxury international hotel brands in the 6.2-hectare luxury integrated resort: Nobu Hotel Manila, Nuwa Manila, and Hyatt Regency Manila that are already receiving local and international recognition for their groundbreaking green initiatives.

City of Dreams Manila, for example, was the first among the integrated resorts to use renewable energy, with its solar panels reducing the resort’s reliance on fossil-fuel-based energy and thus contributing to decarbonization efforts.

City of Dreams Manila’s P76-million 3,120 solar panels have helped reduce the property’s reliance on fossil-fuel-based energy.

The P76-million 3,120 PV solar panels, which generate 1,600 megawatt hour or equivalent to charging over 139 million smartphones, was installed in 2020. To further harness solar energy, an additional P30 million 612 PV solar panels generating 400 MWh annually are currently being installed.

The resort has likewise invested in a Nordaq water filtration system and bottling facility worth $370,000 on-site. This has contributed to the reduction of 11.6 million single-use plastic (SUP) bottles, plastic wet amenities, and plastic consumables across the hotel rooms, casino floors, and throughout the resort and its spas and gyms being diverted from landfills.

City of Dreams is also focused on food waste, one of the biggest challenges faced by the hospitality industry.

So far this year, about three metric tons of food waste (such as vegetable and fruit peelings) have been composted through the on-site vermicomposting facility. The vermicompost system has produced about five metric tons and 3,400 liters of Vermicast and Vermitea, respectively.

These nutritious fertilizers nurture the herb garden, which provide about 209 kilograms of fresh herbs for the resort’s kitchens, resulting in a circular and regenerative system.

Other efforts to reduce food waste include the installation of a food waste composting machine that harnesses a microbial technology to compost food waste. The byproduct is a form of compost that can be used as soil amendment for various horticulture applications, which the property gives to farmers. This year, City of Dreams has so far turned over about 3.6 metric tons of compost to its partner farmers.

For these and other sustainability programs, each of the property’s Forbes Travel Guide-starred hotels bagged the Asean Green Hotels Award, “for upholding sustainable tourism through environment-friendly principles, resource consumption reduction, and local community involvement.”

SM Hotels and Convention Corp.’s Taal Vista Hotel in Tagaytay City has a Giving Garden that supplies the hotel fresh produce.

Long-term commitment

Meanwhile, pioneer integrated resort Newport World Resorts has also integrated sustainable practices across its operations through its I Love Earth (ILE) campaign.

“We believe sustainability is not just a trend—it is a long-term commitment to the future of the industry. We will continue to strengthen and expand our commitment to sustainability with the full support of our chairman, Kevin Tan, not just in sourcing, but also in renewable energy, waste reduction, emissions, and other crucial areas,” said Bruce Winton, Newport World Resorts’ ILE Green Council chair and Marriott Manila general manager.

Among its notable programs is the development of an on-site machine farm in collaboration with Malaysian agricultural technology company BoomGrow Indoor Precision Farming Machine. This technology allows fresh produce to be grown all year-round, producing a higher yield while using 95-percent less land, 95-percent less water, and 95-percent less fuel.

These initiatives are part of a broader sustainability strategy that spans across Newport World Resorts’ operations and the different brands it holds across the 25-hectare property. From healthy, responsible, and sustainable sourcing of supplies; water and energy efficiency measures; operational reforms to reduce waste, and holistic transformations through teaching, training, and technology, the property’s entire ecosystem has pitched in to create more environmentally friendly operations.

These efforts have earned for Newport World Resorts a number of awards, including the Best Sustainability Program from Asia Gaming Awards and Sustainability Company of the Year during the Asia CEO Awards 2024.

7 Green Goals

As for SM Hotels and Conventions Corp. (SMHCC), its sustainability efforts are anchored on the 7Gs or Seven Green Goals, based on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). These include reducing emissions from power consumption, encouraging responsible consumption, recycling water, and promoting sustainable tourism.

The overall thrust for sustainability is cascaded to the rest of properties, ensuring that it is embedded at every step of the hotel’s operations, SMHCC said.

Since the baseline year of 2019, the hospitality unit of the Sy family-led SM Group of Companies has made considerable progress, with its greenhouse gas emissions cut by as much as 40 percent in five years. Energy consumption per guest has likewise dropped by 40.19 percent since 2019, while food waste has also been dramatically reduced by 60 percent.

Taal Vista Hotel in Tagaytay, for instance, has a Giving Garden that supplies the hotel’s fresh produce.

“We have diverted 198 tons of food waste from landfills as of 2019 to 2023. More importantly, food waste prevention is where we take our first steps. We’ve made it our priority through mindful production and simple innovative solutions.” Leah Magallanes, VP for quality and sustainability at SMHCC, said earlier this year.

These efforts show that for these hotel groups, sustainability is not just a buzzword, but a way of life that makes perfect business sense.