For more than 10 years, Kempinski Hotel San Lawrenz has been actively working to limit its own consumption of natural resources. In 2011, the resort installed solar panels as its first big action towards a more sustainable operation, and now another great achievement is filtered water taps. Kempinski Hotel San Lawrenz has adopted a vision of reducing its environmental impact and supporting the sustainability of the planet’s resources, and the logical next step was to install potable water taps in the rooms, suites and apartments to limit the consumption of single-use plastic water bottles.

Melino Sultana, Chief of Engineering, has been leading the deployment and overseeing the progress of this project and other sustainable plans: “We are well underway with the installation, and more than 90% of our rooms already have these faucets installed. Already, through the months of installation, we decreased the number of plastic bottles consumed by 50%, and we are excited to see this number going down even further when all our rooms and apartments have them installed at the end of this year.”

Beyond the filtered water faucets, the hotel is working on multiple projects to become more sustainable; from installing solar panels, replacing plastic key cards with ones from bamboo, and starting with QR-code-based online business cards. With Kempinski having a continuously increasing focus on its culinary offers, one should not be surprised to discover that there is also a vegetable- and herb garden managed by the hotel where local produce is grown and cultivated. To further enhance the culinary experience in a sustainable way, all the menus in each of the restaurants have vegetarian and vegan options available.

In the words of General Manager, Ruth Abellan: “The hotel industry has not been traditionally known for its focus on sustainable initiatives, and I’m proud we are seeing a trend change here. It is no small feat to develop a project of this size during our peak season, and it wouldn’t have been possible without the commitment of our owning company, the Baldacchino Group. After having this project in the pipeline for the past 2 years, it is wonderful to finally see it come to fruition and hear the appreciative words from our guests. We thank all our guests for joining us in our responsibility to protect Gozo’s environment, and for being an active change agent in the preservation of our small island as a sustainable destination.”