Four Seasons Hotels & Resorts Partners with ecoSPIRITS across Asia Pacific
SINGAPORE 3 JUNE 2020 ecoSPIRITS and Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts have partnered to reduce single use glass waste and carbon footprint across the leading hotel group’s entire Asia Pacific network. With this partnership, Four Seasons becomes the first hotel group in the world to pioneer low carbon, low waste spirits on a continent-wide scale.
As one of the world’s most respected hotel companies, Four Seasons is extending its leadership position with a number of sustainability initiatives. Under the partnership with ecoSPIRITS, Four Seasons properties across Asia Pacific will exclusively pour premium and craft spirits available through the ecoSPIRITS distribution platform. This partnership is expected to eliminate tens of thousands of single use glass bottles, and many tons of carbon emissions, per year once fully implemented.
ecoSPIRITS is currently available in Singapore, Hong Kong SAR, Macau SAR, Mainland China, Malaysia, Thailand, the Maldives, Australia, and New Zealand. A growing number of Four Seasons properties have already completed the transition to ecoSPIRITS, including Four Seasons Hotel Hong Kong, Four Seasons Hotel Kuala Lumpur, Four Seasons Hotel Sydney and Four Seasons Resort Maldives at Landaa Giravaaru. The balance of Four Season’s Asia Pacific properties will transition to ecoSPIRITS as the technology becomes available in the remaining regional markets.
“We are proud and excited to partner with ecoSPIRITS in implementing this innovative and important new technology across 27 properties in the Asia Pacific region.” said Four Seasons Asia Pacific Vice President of Food & Beverage, Philipp Blaser. “The positive impact of decreasing the carbon footprint of spirits by 80% speak for themselves, especially as in 2020 we are welcoming 10 new restaurants and bars including the opening of Four Seasons Hotel Bangkok at Chao Praya River and Four Seasons Tokyo Otemachi. We have found the transition process to be seamless with very few changes required in back-of-house, while the partnership further reinforces our other sustainability efforts in other areas including the elimination of plastic bottles from our guestroom private bars in Asia Pacific and plastic straws across our global portfolio.”
As part of this ground-breaking partnership, ecoSPIRITS will provide detailed carbon audit and waste savings reporting to Four Seasons. In addition to this glass waste reduction, the ecoSPIRITS Forest Program will plant one indigenous tree in a reforestation tract of the Kalimantan rainforest area in Borneo, Indonesia for each cycle of an ecoTOTE through the ecoSPIRITS and Four Seasons closed loop. ecoSPIRITS expects to plant several thousand trees on behalf of Four Seasons in the next 12 months.
ecoSPIRITS CEO Paul Gabie notes, “Provenance is important for premium spirits, and for the well-travelled luxury hotel guest. Unfortunately, this translates into high carbon footprints. ecoSPIRITS addresses the problem of single use glass, which makes up the majority of the carbon footprint of premium spirits. We are delighted to partner with Four Seasons Hotels & Resorts, who are demonstrating true sustainability leadership with this Asia-Pacific wide commitment. Together, we can eliminate a small portion of the 22 million tons of carbon emission that single use glass spirit bottles will generate in 2020.”
About Four Seasons Hotels & Resorts
Founded in 1960, Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts is dedicated to perfecting the travel experience through continual innovation and the highest standards of hospitality. Currently operating 116 hotels and resorts, and 44 residential properties in major city centres and resort destinations in 47 countries, and with more than 50 projects under planning or development, Four Seasons consistently ranks among the world’s best hotels and most prestigious brands in reader polls, traveller reviews and industry awards. For more information and reservations, visit fourseasons.com. For the latest news, visit press.fourseasons.com and follow @FourSeasonsPR on Twitter.
ecoSPIRITS Partners with Green Steps Group
SINGAPORE 22 May 2020 ecoSPIRITS has announced a partnership with Green Steps Group, carbon dioxide (CO2) impact specialists, to launch the ecoSPIRITS Forest Program , which will further offset the carbon impact of beverage operations at leading hotels, bars and restaurants across Asia Pacific. With this first-of-its kind program, ecoSPIRITS and its partner venues, spirit brands and distributors deepen their commitment to carbon impact leadership in the beverage industry.
The ecoSPIRITS Forest Program will help ecoSPIRITS partner venues generate additional carbon mitigation beyond the substantial carbon footprint reduction from their use of low-waste, low-carbon spirits. Under the program, one tree will be planted for each cycle of an ecoTOTE through the ecoSPIRITS closed loop distribution platform. Each tree planted will be geo-tagged in the name of the partner venue. Using Green Steps Group’s proprietary “proof of planting” technology platform, the ecoSPIRITS Forest Program will be verified, monitored, and reported through an industry-leading digital trail. Tree planting benefits the partner venue, but is jointly funded by ecoSPIRITS, its spirit brand partners, such as Plantation Rum and Widges Gin, and its licensed local distributors, such as Proof & Company Australia.
ecoSPIRITS CEO Paul Gabie notes, “Through its closed loop technology, ecoSPIRITS already generates a transformative reduction in the carbon footprint of premium spirits. But reduction is not elimination. The ecoSPIRITS Forest Program ensures we ourselves offset the balance of the carbon footprint from our business and manufacturing operations. More importantly, it will allow the rapidly growing network of ecoSPIRITS partner venues to offset a substantial portion of the remaining carbon footprint of their beverage operations.”
The ecoSPIRITS Forest Program will initially focus on a reforestation tract of the endangered Kalimantan rainforest in Borneo, Indonesia. During the first year of the program, the parties expect to plant at least 25,000 locally grown trees in the area. The process begins with the planting of saplings of indigenous trees, which have been grown from seed at on-site nurseries, in an area cleared of invasive jungle vines. This is a tough, labour-intensive process known as silviculture. In the first year, the planting site is revisited every few months to be manually cleared of the vines, which can overwhelm and smother the young trees. Once safely established, however, these future forest giants can sequester CO2 for more than 200 years.
The Kalimantan rainforest replanting area in Borneo, Indonesia
Andrew Kerr, Green Steps Group founder, explains: “In simple terms, CO2 sequestration refers to the conversion of atmospheric CO2 into carbon. Trees are approximately 50% carbon, which means half of every tree is long-term-stored CO2, and with the massive and incredibly fast growing trees in Borneo this is one of the best places on Earth to capture CO2.”
Under the ecoSPIRITS Forest Program, the principal local tree species planted will be Dillenia Borneensis, Octomeles Sumatrana, and Molotus Muticus. Approximately 12 kg of CO2 is sequestered per tree, per year, over an initial 12-year period. Beyond 12 years, the sequestration increases as the trees grow. With life spans averaging 200 years, and with some of the trees such as Octomeles Sumatrana living up to 500 years, the average tree in the ecoSPIRITS Forest Program will sequester 2,400 kg of CO2 – or the equivalent of eliminating 4,800 single use glass spirit bottles – over its entire lifespan.
The ecoSPIRITS Forest Program will be managed by a cooperative (co-op) of four villages, who share the income from the tree planting. In addition, they set aside funding for village student scholarships and medical emergencies. Prior to COVID-19, the village co-ops relied mainly on ecotourism for funding, but the impact of the pandemic has left the village planting-operation entirely dependent on support from enterprises such as ecoSPIRITS, Green Steps Group and their spirits and distribution partners. Working together, the ecoSPIRITS network is helping to regenerate a safe, natural habitat for some of the planet’s most rare and endangered wildlife, while also providing hugely valuable CO2 sequestration.
The ecoSPIRITS Forest Program will have a substantial impact on the carbon footprint of ecoSPIRITS partner venues. By choosing ecoSPIRITS, venues already generate 550g of carbon emissions savings per 700ml bottle of spirit poured. The ecoSPIRITS Forest Program now adds an additional 1,800g of yearly emissions savings for each bottle poured. One such venue is Cantina OK! in Sydney, Australia, which will plant at least 250 trees per year by pouring spirits. The annual carbon impact of Cantina OK!’s ecoSPIRITS partnership, through both the elimination of single use glass and reforestation, will now exceed 4,000kg of emissions reduction. And all this for a 15-square meter laneway bar.
“Rarely do you get the opportunity to work with innovative people looking to make the world a better place. Not everyone sees the forest for the trees. Our relationship with ecoSPIRITS is one of those unique win-win situations. We thought eliminating single use glass bottles was game-changing, but the ecoSPIRITS Forest Program has really set a new precedent,” says Alex Dowd, Co-Owner, Cantina OK!. “We’re proud to be a part of it and feel lucky that, even in a small space, we can contribute to offsetting our carbon impact and reforesting endangered rainforests. We hope that other companies around the world are taking notice of the new standards being set.”
About Green Steps Group
Green Steps Group, a Swedish-based technology start-up, provides governance for the tree planting organization and the measurement of the CO2 output of each tree. Using a proprietary platform that combines geo-tagging, camera-traps and satellite multi-spectrum imagery to monitor individual trees , GSG and the on-site research scientists track the overall health of the forest and track the long-term CO2 impact at a per-tree level. Demonstrating how quickly success can be achieved, GSG has been able to document the movements of orangutans sleeping in trees that were planted only a few years ago.
For more information, please visit www.greenstepsgroup.com