If there were a green lodging hall of fame, Ewald Biemans would be one of the first inductees. I had an opportunity to speak with him this past week. For those of you not familiar with Ewald, he is the owner and CEO of Aruba’s Bucuti & Tara Beach Resort. The 104-room property has been open since 1987 and Ewald has been championing sustainability and continuous improvement for 31 of those years. More than 20 Green Lodging News articles have featured Bucuti & Tara. It would be impossible to mention all the resort’s accomplishments in just one column.
As one of our industry’s leading eco-champions, Ewald has good reason to be concerned. Bucuti & Tara sits just six feet above ocean level. As the beach goes in Aruba, so too goes its tourism.
“Aruba has almost no vegetation and it is diminishing,” Ewald says. “It hasn’t really rained in six years. Something is changing. The Caribbean is being affected.” He adds that Aruba has no rivers or springs. It has no natural source of water. Since the 1930s the island has been distilling sea water. Distillation is expensive, and oil is burned in the process.
Biemans is doing everything he can to reduce the impact of his property. In fact, this past spring he issued a press release stating that a week’s vacation at Bucuti & Tara is better for the environment than an equivalent drive vacation—actually 68 percent better.
Resort Achieves Carbon Neutrality
As published earlier this month on Green Lodging News, Ewald announced that Bucuti & Tara just became the first hotel in the Caribbean to achieve carbon neutrality—the culmination of what Ewald says was a five-year journey. CarbonNeutral is a global standard awarded to businesses that have reduced their (CO2) greenhouse gas emissions, which trap heat in the atmosphere, to net zero.
Over the years, the resort’s Green Team, with full owner support and substantial investment, has accomplished extensive emission reductions within its operation. Through its extensive CarbonNeutral initiatives, Bucuti & Tara reduced its carbon emissions to the maximum possible level within the resort. The small remaining gap is offset with carbon credits through its local Vader Piet wind farm.
Initiatives span the simple to the complex with every resort service being scrutinized and improved upon. Gifting every guest with a reusable water canteen has resulted in keeping 290,000 single-use plastic water bottles annually from landing in Aruba’s landfill. Offering healthier portions provided guests with more sensible—and desirable—serving sizes, with a byproduct of reducing food waste by 30 percent. The resort installed the island’s largest solar panel system—the maximum the government would allow.
The CarbonNeutral Protocol
Bucuti & Tara is committed to following The CarbonNeutral Protocol, the leading framework for achieving carbon neutrality worldwide. Through the carbon neutrality certification process, it worked with SCS Global Services (formerly Scientific Certifications Systems) to verify the emissions of resort operations and Natural Capital Partners, carbon offset experts in the delivery of solutions for positive impact on carbon, renewable energy, biodiversity and water.
“It helps us in many ways,” Ewald says. “It helps our customers to feel good about staying here. For our staff it is the same. We have the community involved and our guests involved.”
For Ewald, who has lived on Aruba for 50 years, it is his love for nature that has helped him address environmental challenges at his resort.
Regarding the global lodging industry, Ewald says, “It is one of the largest of the culprits of the mismanagement of the environment. The point is to preserve nature and mitigate global warming.” He adds that only eight of the 21 major hotels on Aruba are practicing conservation.
“We want everyone to jump on the bandwagon,” he says.
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