Ritz Paris
The Sybaritic Single enjoys luxury without guilt as he is being chauffeured across the tarmac at Malé International Airport from a seaplane to a commercial airliner in a gleaming St. Regis Bentley – the only Bentley in the entire Maldives – and watches the latest mini film marking the 25th anniversary of the LVMH environment department. He applauses to the conglomerate for promoting sustainable consumption so elegantly, starring the vivacious and glamorous Mademoiselle Agnès, and wishes that more luxury hotels took note and looked at CSR in a different light.
What can be more démodé than yet another note left on the pillow pestering about scarce water resources or telling where to leave towels to have them replaced? After more than two decades spent at luxury hotels, the Sybaritic Single realises it is just a way to save money for hoteliers and wants his bed linen fresh daily. He leaves it up to hotels to finally upgrade outdated laundries with eco-friendly technology and use detergent that is good enough to be biodegradable.
As for using the actual water resources, luxury hotels in the Middle East came up with a brilliant grey-water cycle that purifies water and uses it for watering gardens. One particular resort there even produces its own fertilisers from the 700kg of its daily food waste: the compost bins are on-site. That is an example of smart CSR and minimising waste.
Next is air-conditioning. The Sybaritic Single always uses an extra key-card to keep his room powered at all times, because coming back to a stuffy room is annoying – and blasting AC full strength for the next hour is more damaging to the environment. He has a friend who has once requested for the bedroom of his suite to be cooled down to +4C (with the outside temperature closer to +40C) and be kept like that for a full week – that might be a bit extravagant yet the guest is king and choice is luxury. MORE TO COME – STAY TUNED
