“Our 32,000 employees are impassioned advocates for the environment,” declares Megan Morikawa, Iberostar Group’s Director of Sustainability. The Stanford University-trained scientist has just returned from Madrid where she addressed delegates at the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP25), on Iberostar’s commitment to the ocean.
According to Morikawa, the ocean and sustainability are as much a part of the DNA of Iberostar Hotels & Resorts as they are a part of the family that has owned them for four generations.
Megan Morikawa, Sustainability Director, at work in Coral Lab
“The Mediterranean island background of the Fluxà family makes the ocean a natural priority,” she says. “And with locations in Mexico, Jamaica, the Dominican Republic and Cuba, among its 120 properties, 80% of Iberostar’s assets are coastal.”
For the past two years, Iberostar’s Wave of Change movement has strengthened the company’s ongoing commitment to sustainability with an emphasis on the three pillars of plastics reduction, responsible seafood consumption and coastal health.
Iberostar also applies a circular economy model to its operations, and its energy, water, waste management and transportation systems are all environmentally low impact. The company has also implemented a sustainable food program called Honest Food, ensuring that all of its hotels source 90% of their food locally.
“We have time bound transparent goals and have employed 12 full time dedicated experts from diverse backgrounds, from science communication to PhDs in marine biology, to ensure that our sustainability initiatives are scientifically based and measurable,” says Morikawa. “We are also getting a hold of our carbon footprint and devising a plan to ensure that we will be carbon-neutral by at least 2050.”
Wave of Change and other sustainable projects earned Iberostar the Outstanding Contribution to The Travel & Tourism Industry Award and the Gold accolade for Reducing Plastic Waste, during World Responsible Tourism Day.
These are some of the commitments that Iberostar has made to be as sustainable as possible and to take its operations to carbon neutral status by 2050.
Moving beyond plastics (Pillar one of Wave of Change)
Iberostar has, to date, eliminated more than 500 tons of plastic waste across its global hotel network through a rigorous approach to reducing the use of plastics that has included adding multi-use recyclables to remove 2,700 kg of plastic a year, switching to plant-based bags for garbage bins to remove 134,619 kg of plastics a year, replacing pens with pencils in rooms to save 3,240 kg of plastics a year, switching to reusable fabric laundry bags to save 3,000 kg of plastics a year, replacing plastic mini-bar products to save 900 kg of plastics a year, using plant-based bags for shoes to save 420 kg of plastics a year, creating ecologically safe guest ID wristbands to save 1,226 kg of plastics a year and installing water refilling stations around its properties to save 85,000 bottles a year.
By the end of 2019, all of Iberostar’s 120 global hotels will have rooms that are free of single-use plastics and by 2020, Iberostar plans to do away with single-use plastics across its entire global operation.
Responsible consumption of seafood (Pillar two of Wave of Change)
Iberostar was the first hotel chain in the Americas to obtain the chain of custody to serve the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) and the Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) certified products (Iberostar Grand Paraíso, in the Riviera Maya, Mexico, and Iberostar Grand Bavaro in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic).
To date, the company has converted 15% of its total seafood procurement to suppliers certified by MSC and ASC, and is well on its way to meeting its goal of 25% certified sustainable seafood procurement.
Iberostar has also collaborated with the MSC and ASC to extend certifications to parts of the world where they have never gone before (such as lobster fisheries in Riviera Maya, Mexico) thus helping to protect more species and ecosystems from overfishing and ensuring that more suppliers comply with the latest environmental laws.
Coastal Health (Pillar three of Wave of Change)
Iberostar aims to promote the discovery, protection and restoration of seagrasses, mangroves, and coral reefs that surround its properties.
In 2019, the hotel chain opened its first on-land Coral Reef Lab in the Dominican Republic, for the purpose of studying the impacts of coral bleaching, to serve as a genetic bank for coral and as an educational facility for Iberostar guests to learn about the importance of coral reefs.
“By serving as a genetic bank for 11 species of coral, we became a bit of a Noah’s Ark as Stony Coral Tissue Loss disease spread to the Caribbean, wiping out 80% of the coral cover,” explains Morikawa.
The lab is the first of a network of research facilities that Iberostar is hoping to build.
“We see this as a marathon and not as a sprint,” says Morikawa. “We won’t see the results of this work for another 10 years.”
Coral growing in the lab
Honest food
In addition to its commitment to sustainable consumption of seafood, Iberostar sources 90% of the food served at its hotels from local suppliers and focuses on seasonal and natural ingredients. Vegetables, plant-based proteins and grass-fed meat take centre stage and chefs make every effort to reduce waste. In keeping with the chain’s commitment to a circular economy, all organic waste generated in food production is composted.
Public Education
“We strive to take real actions that give our guests, employees and the communities where we operate an experience that incentivises them to be part of the solution to save our planet,” says Gloria Fluxà, Vice-Chairman & Chief Sustainability Officer for Iberostar Group.
Staff can become Wave of Change ambassadors through an incentive-based gaming system and guests often become change agents in their own communities. The kids’ Star Camp also recruits children to get involved in protecting the ocean.
“What we hope to do is lead by example, so that others will join in this movement with us,” says Morikawa. “A lot of the barriers to responsible tourism involve a lack of information. This is the hotel of the future… we want to have a smaller footprint but a bigger impact. Hopefully our open communication will serve as a catalyst for other hotels to do the same.”