BORA BORA, FRENCH POLYNESIA—InterContinental Resorts French Polynesia recently announced that InterContinental Bora Bora Resort & Thalasso Spa has successfully achieved “EarthCheck Silver Certification.” This award places InterContinental Bora Bora Resort & Thalasso Spa as one of the leaders in the ever-increasing market for environmental sustainability.
EarthCheck is a leading sustainability program used by the travel and tourism industry. EarthCheck is a science-based approach to sustainability that establishes a system to track and measure resource use and waste output, and encourages design and operational effectiveness. The InterContinental Bora Bora Resort & Thalasso Spa team has made continuous efforts to remain environmentally, socially and economically sustainable, allowing the eco-friendly resort to achieve this prestigious certification.
InterContinental Bora Bora Resort & Thalasso Spa continuously strives to raise environmental awareness and employs safe environmental practices. The resort was the very first hotel in the world to successfully implement the “Sea Water Air-Conditioning System” (SWAC), which draws on an inexhaustible supply of non-fossil and completely renewable clean energy. Deploying a 7,874-foot pipe (the deepest ocean pipe in the world) to a depth of 3,000 feet off the reef of Bora Bora, the pipe pumps ice cold sea water through a titanium heat exchanger, transferring the cold into the fresh water circuit that then powers the air-conditioning throughout the hotel. SWAC has zero impact on the environment, is quiet, produces no carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gasses, and saves 90 percent of the electricity consumed by a conventional cooling system of similar capacity. This translates to a reduction of CO2 emissions that is the equivalent of approximately 2.5 million liters of fuel oil imports per year to French Polynesia.
Conservation and environmental awareness remains a cornerstone for each of the four InterContinental Resorts French Polynesia. The resort teams work diligently to educate guests, the local community and staff on the importance of conservation and protecting the environment. InterContinental Bora Bora Resort & Thalasso Spa annually celebrates World Ocean Day and Earth Day, and has also created an on-property coral garden used as an educational tool for marine biology and protection.
The resort has also assembled a group of hotel staff members, including the in-house marine biologist, to create a pool of ideas to conserve and protect the environment on a daily basis as well as on a larger scale. The individuals are volunteers who come from a variety of different hotel departments such as marketing, landscaping, and maintenance. The teams are not only working toward internal sensitivity to the environment, but also to create consumer brochures that will promote marine conservation and environmental protection to guests.
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