KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA—Sunway Hotels & Resorts, the hospitality division of Malaysian conglomerate Sunway Group, has partnered with Kloth Cares, a Malaysian social entrepreneurship movement dedicated to keep fabrics out of landfills through rethinking, reusing, reducing, repurposing and recycling unwanted fabrics. The partnership involves Sunway Hotels & Resorts located in Kuala Lumpur, namely Sunway Resort Hotel & Spa, Sunway Pyramid Hotel, Sunway Clio Hotel, Sunway Putra Hotel and Sunway Velocity Hotel where a permanent Kloth Cares bin were placed in the respective hotels for its employees to recycle their used linen, clothes and soft toys which are then collected on a...

DENVER—Silicon Valley-incubated FloWater is one step closer to making it easier than ever before for the growing numbers of consumers looking to ditch the plastic water bottle. Attendees at CES this year (Las Vegas, January 7 to 10) will get the first glimpse at a “smarter,” IoT-connected drinking water platform. FloWater, makers of new-tech water refill stations, will unveil a development project for a cloud-connected, smart water Refill Station and mobile app, powered by Microsoft’s Azure Sphere, at Sichuan Changhong Electric’s booth (# 11439). FloWater’s development of an IoT mobile app works hand in hand with its smart water Refill...

PLACENCIA, BELIZE—Ray Caye is a small (20-unit) island resort with a very large focus on sustainability. The property is 17 miles off the coast of Belize and a short flight from Belize City, then a boat ride. It has been open for eight years but is reopening in January as Ray Caye. This is a decidedly upscale resort but there has been as much investment in environmental elements as in accommodations, according to Dasha Shivers, the resort’s General Manager. Seriously Solar On the solar front, the resort has a solar array of 100 KW (total of all installed solar panels); a...

ATLANTA—IHG owners across the United States and Canada are driving further impact in local communities through the Renovation Donation Initiative (RDI), an industry-leading reuse program. Over the past year, more than 50 hotels have registered to participate in the program, including nearly 30 which have already scheduled or completed pick-ups. Launched as a pilot effort by IHG and the IHG Owners Association in October 2018, and fully open to all IHG-branded hotels in the United States and Canada as of April 2019, the first-of-its-kind RDI provides hotels undergoing renovation an easy process to reduce waste and support local communities by...

KEHL, GERMANY—Plastic waste has become a highly debated global issue. The small bottles of body care products, which still can be found in many hotel bathrooms, contribute significantly to this problem. Estimates show that each year, the hotel industry disposes over 10 billion of these mini bottles, many of which still contain product. ADA Cosmetics International is using the “Make the Shift” campaign to draw the attention of hoteliers towards environmentally friendly dispenser systems. The key communication mode is a landing page with background information and product news on the topic of dispenser system solutions, presented in a magazine style....

SAN CLEMENTE, CALIF.—Bamboo Studio is about to launch Eco Hempware, the world’s first collection of foodservice tableware made entirely from high-grade industrial grown hemp fiber. Twice as strong as steel, six times as flexible, and 100 percent compostable, industrial hemp is a high-yield crop ideally suited for the food industry, producing four times as much fiber pulp from one acre of hemp as an acre of trees. Eco Hempware is microwave safe, dishwasher safe and extremely durable. Experts at making sustainable tableware with natural fibers for over 10 years, Bamboo Studio is launching its newest brand, Eco-Hempware, with an initial 50-piece...

MALE, MALDIVES—Emerald Collection announced that Emerald Maldives Resort & SPA has opened. Unusual to any private island, Emerald Maldives houses a wraparound reef which means guests are never more than a few footsteps away from an encounter with exotic fish, turtles or manta rays. The 120-villa resort is located on the Raa Atoll, renowned for having some of the most diverse marine life in the world and boasts one of the largest lagoons in the Maldives. “With Emerald Maldives Resort & SPA, we wanted to create a sanctuary for guests who wish to escape the pressures and stress of modern-day...

MCLEAN, VA.—As the holiday season approaches, Hilton is announcing the expansion of its innovative food donation initiative to all of its managed hotels across the United States and Canada, representing one of the largest hotel food donation programs to date. The company expects to donate nearly 100 tons of food over the next year—enough to feed more than 160,000 people—while also diverting millions of pounds of food waste from landfills. “We have a century-long tradition at Hilton of playing a pioneering role in the hospitality industry, and it is inspiring to see our Team Members taking that spirit out into...

First this week: In last week’s articles, “Research Conducted for Clean the World: Bacterial Contamination Common in Refillable Dispensers,” and “New Research Much Fuel for the Fire in Ongoing Dispenser Debate,” Clean the World CEO and President Shawn Seipler incorrectly used the word “fecal” to describe the bacteria contained in the refillable dispensers that were part of a study conducted by the University of Arizona. Those mentions have since been corrected. The Executive Summary of the larger report on dispensers to be published next year was a hot topic of conversation this past week. It would be great to see...

MEXICO CITY—Vidanta Riviera Maya, one of the Vidanta Resorts, has been named as the first resort destination in Mexico to receive EarthCheck Master Certification, which has been granted to only 21 companies around the world. EarthCheck—the world’s leading authority in environmental consulting, scientific benchmarking, and sustainability certification for the travel and tourism industry—awarded Vidanta Riviera Maya with the “Master Status” for 15 years of continuous environmental leadership and successfully meeting criteria in energy conservation programs, appropriate procedures for water and waste management, the reduction of greenhouse gases in hotels and golf courses, and the active promotion of sustainability. In addition to...