ENGAGEMENT STARTS WITH THE HEART.

A management initiative

The Green Key label awarded in 2016 and the renewal of this accreditation for three consecutive years reflects the management’s desire to place sustainable development and environmental responsibility at the heart of the group’s concerns.

Accreditation comes with online audit, and every two to three years, independent auditors from SGS visit Heritage Resorts to ensure – on behalf of Green Key – that the group meets the 133 criteria of the label.

Employee involvement

The Environmental Charter of Heritage Resorts stresses the individual responsibility of each and everyone in the fight to preserve resources.

From now on, each employee must commit to complying with this charter. In addition, two mandatory clauses have recently been added to new job descriptions: “Contribute to the environmental and sustainable responsibility established by the hotel” and “Ensure energy savings (electricity, gas, water)”.

A guest is also a stakeholder of the hotel, and it is with this in mind that Heritage Resorts invests time and resources in relaying information on sustainable development to its guests.

In rooms, the Sustainability TV and the Guest Directory inform guests about the green initiatives of the group. Guests are encouraged to participate in beach clean-up operations and to opt for non-polluting modes of transport (bicycle and pedestrian tracks and shuttles) throughout the estate.

As part of the Green and Blue Month in June, Heritage Le Telfair organises a Sustainable Fair where each department held a stand to present its green projects.

At Heritage Awali, the Timomo Kids Club has been operating a Yellow Submarine since February 2019: a submarine-shaped information centre set up by REEF Conservation where children engage in sensory, artistic and recreational activities to explore the rich Mauritian sea bed and the risks associated with pollution at sea.

Water is precious on an island. Heritage Resorts measures and analyses the water consumption of its hotels on a daily basis in order to immediately address anomalies and aim for even lower water consumption.

Rainwater is a valuable resource. Rainwater collected is used to clean the employee area, golf carts, garbage cans and vegetable containers, among others, are therefore washed in an eco-friendly way.

Saving electricity is a top priority at Heritage Resorts. Translated at several levels – from the exclusive use of energy-saving light bulbs (LEDs and compact fluorescent bulbs) to a complex energy recovery system in the ventilation system to heat the water entering boilers, but also through a centralized solar water heater or even insulation of hot and cold pipes to maintain water temperature.

Washing and cleaning goes eco-friendly. Our favorite suppliers adopt a co-responsible approach and opt for eco-labelled products as much as possible. At Heritage Resorts, cleaning products, dishwashing products, laundry products and amenities (toiletries) are eco-labelled.

Good to know: Shampoo and shower gel bottles are collected, washed and replenished by the supplier.

Heritage Resorts bans toxic gases

The new refrigerators and freezers at Heritage Resorts hotels do not emit toxic CFC and HCFC gases. At Heritage Awali, only eco-friendly paints are used during renovations. The maintenance team uses the Mauvilac Go Green and Permoglaze Aqua Lasure brands from the Eco Earth range – among others.

Maintenance of green spaces

Heritage Resorts is committed to reducing its use of insecticides, herbicides and fungicides to a minimum. Organic and eco-labelled products and natural fertilisers are systematically favoured. In order to protect plants from insects, they are cleaned with soapy water or Natrasoap – a certified organic Australian formula that consists of potassium salts, fatty acids and vegetable oil. The occasional use of pesticides is done in a rational way, and only as a last resort.

Heritage Resorts specialises in green…

Heritage Resorts boasts a spectacular championship course maintained by a range of Australian certified organic products which are used almost exclusively in place of chemical pesticides and herbicides. A second course is coming up, and as it is designed to minimise its ecological footprint, it has already been awarded the GEO Certified® label. It is the only Mauritian golf course to have obtained this certification right from the start of the work! The Golf Environment Organisation is an independent international organisation that supports sustainable development in the golf industry. It centres on three axes: nature, resources and community.

For more information on GEO: Click Here

Green waste is composted by Agrïa (ex-Compagnie Sucrière de Bel Ombre) and the planting of endemic species is recommended. Heritage Le Telfair is home to a beautiful endemic garden! It should be noted that the new gardening equipment is, for the most part, economical. For example, the maintenance team uses electric blowers to limit fuel consumption.

Heritage Resorts is committed to the “Three Rs”, a strategy for managing products at the end of their life and the resulting waste.

Reduce

The first step towards waste reduction is the measurement of current waste. This is the very reason why Heritage Resorts has employed a waste management company to measures and weighs waste, identifies recurring waste that cannot be recycled and conducts training for employees to teach them how to sort waste. “Our objective,” explains Alexandre Piat, Heritage Resorts Sustainable Development Executive “is to systematically reduce the amount of and therefore ask our suppliers to reduce – or even eliminate – packaging when products arrive and to favour recyclable materials.”

Reuse

Heritage Resorts works closely with Agrïa. The company recovers organic waste from hotels to feed its pigs and green waste to make compost for its vegetable gardens. It should be noted that Heritage Awali also features a compost station located not far from the chef’s vegetable garden. Used edible oils are recovered and sent to the Mauritian company Bioil Ltd to be transformed into second generation fuels.

For more information on Bioil: Click here

Recycle

Heritage Resorts sorts all its recyclable waste before sending it to the appropriate disposal channels. Cardboard and paper are recycled by Paper Link Ltd; Polyphenylene ether (PEP) bottles and plastic bags are recycled by Polypet Recyclers Ltd; used coffee capsules are recycled by Nespresso; electronics are recycled by BEM Ltd; batteries are recovered by EMTEL and glass is recycled on site, within the Plankton cooperative. Soon, tyres will also be recycled! Sorting bins are also available to guests throughout the hotels.

For more information on Plankton: Click Here

Focus on short-circuit

For several years, the kitchens of Heritage Resorts, including Heritage Le Château, have been sourcing fresh produce from Agrïa: deer, pheasants, wild boars and hearts of palm, among others. This informal exchange has evolved into a real willingness to promote local products, products that are accessible because of their proximity (and which therefore contribute to reducing the group’s carbon footprint), but also qualitative since Agrïa’s farmers are trained in sustainable agriculture.

In 2018, Agrïa started a small vegetable garden behind Heritage Le Château, followed by a second 15-acre garden in 2019. The plants grown – onions, pineapples, sweet potatoes, beets, carrots, manioc, etc. – are generously used by hotel managers. Two 2,500 m2 greenhouses where salads and fine vegetables will be planted will soon be operational in Bel Ombre. Finally, since its reopening, the C Beach Club has operated a salad bar fed by vegetable gardens, and Agrïa supervises a cabinet for sprouting young shoots. In the hotels, an increasing percentage of the fruits on offer are local and seasonal. “We now want to communicate better on these initiatives,” states Alexandre Piat, “because clients like to know where the products they consume come from”. At Heritage Le Telfair, one can buy regional homemade gourmet products such as deer rillette with spices, pork terrine with “kari Poulet” or pheasant with papaya. In the coming months, Heritage Resorts will open a store where Mauritians can also buy fresh products from Bel Ombre (vegetables, game, fruits, flowers and endemic plants).

Local artists and creators in the spotlight

Welcoming craft(wo)manship in the resort with typical Vacoas products made with Love, transforming the Spa into a contemporary art gallery, showcasing the talents of our Mauritian artists, and choosing “localism” in our resort shops, Local is Definitely Beautiful!

Our collaboration with Foodwise

The Mauritian social enterprise Foodwise aims to fight food waste by feeding children living in precarious conditions. In 2019, Heritage Resorts partnered with Foodwise to redistribute its food surpluses to Safire – an NGO that provides street children with support, training and social reintegration services. It is the hotel suppliers who are responsible for delivering meals to the NGO when they leave the hotels in an empty truck. To date, children welcomed by Safire at the Riambel Community Centre receive a complete and nutritious meal from Heritage Resorts twice a week. Heritage Resorts also contributes to the maintenance of the site (periodic renovations, repairs, etc.).

For more information:

Safire |  Foodwise

Yellow Submarine programme

In June and July 2019, 130 students from schools in Bel ombre participated in the Yellow Submarine programme, organised at the Timomo Kids Club as part of Heritage Resorts’ Green and Blue Month. Back at school, they took part in an illustration competition on the theme: “Ki fer ek koman nou kapav protez nu lagon?”

Group employees were also invited to visit the Yellow Submarine to learn more about the seabed and participate in a glass-bottom boat trip in the Bel Ombre lagoon.

Beach and village clean-up operations

In 2019, Heritage Resorts organised three clean-up operations in the region to which employees, guests and residents were invited. At each beach-cleaning, volunteers collected 10 m3 of waste. During the village cleaning, volunteers filled no less than 4 x 10 m3 garbage bins.

For more information on some of the NGOs we support :

Lovebridge  |  Caritas  |  Chrysalide