KHANH HOA PROVINCE, VIETNAM—Vu Ngoc Linh, a hospitality professional with over a decade of experience in food and beverage departments, has left the career ladder of the typical restaurant professional to pursue a whole new kind of fulfillment.
Earlier this spring, the 580-room Alma Resort on Vietnam’s south-central coast appointed Linh as its first Sustainability Officer. It will be Linh’s job to track the property’s energy consumption, resource conservation, recycling, pollution reduction, waste disposal, transportation, education efforts, and building design.
The role also involves creating sustainability programs, budgets, and schedules, evaluating the success of sustainability initiatives, and managing three staff committees focused on “green products”, “innovation and solutions” and “people and partnerships”.
The stakes are high. The thirty-hectare station requires 46,720 kWh of electricity and 900 m3 of water per day.
Ambitious Solar Energy Project
One of Linh’s new projects, under the auspices of the Innovation and Solutions Committee, is the implementation of what Alma considers the most ambitious hotel solar energy project to date in Vietnam. Alma will install 5,634 solar panels this year totaling 12,500 square meters. With a peak capacity of 2,480 kilowatts, the solar power system will supply between a quarter and nearly half of Alma’s energy needs, depending on occupancy.
In addition to the resort’s 325 m² water treatment plant which is deploying a reverse osmosis system to provide 70,000 liters of drinking water and ice per week to all kitchens in the resort, Linh will also help determine other means of offsetting the resort’s water consumption.
Linh started his hospitality career in 2011 as a waiter at Six Senses Ninh Van Bay, before becoming Restaurant Supervisor at Dessole Beach Resort Nha Trang, team leader at Vinpearl Land amusement park and Assistant Manager of the outlet at Golden Peak Resort & Spa and Duyen Ha Resort. Linh then became Restaurant Manager at Xavia Hotel and Florida Nha Trang Hotel, and Assistant Restaurant Manager at Eastin Grand Hotel Nha Trang.
Laubichler-Pichler said Linh’s experience in the restaurant business—an area notorious for generating waste—motivated him to take on a sustainability role.
