SUSTAINABILITY in action -Part 2

Six Senses Laamu Maldives

"The ULTIMATE SUCCESS for SIX SENSES is the ability to MAKE SUSTAINA BILITY sumptuous AND TR AVEL, PURPOSEFUL."

In the second of our series of articles on what leading spas around the world are doing in terms of sustainable practices, GreenSpa Africa’s Charne le Roux focuses on the Six Senses Hotels Resorts Spas Group

The Six Senses Group has become synonymous with sustainability. For the over 40 spas under its wing, green is simply business as usual. And that is how it should be. Sustainability should be as mainstream to spas as providing a personal care service.

In fact, the ultimate success for Six Senses is the ability to make sustainability sumptuous and travel, purposeful. They weave environmentally friendly and socially responsible into gorgeous hideaways with no waste, toxins and plastic, but with an abundance of spirituality, celebration and joy.

Six Senses achieves its objectives through very specific values. One of them is its approach to building spaces, where nature dictates design and natural building materials. Furthermore, passive heating and cooling strategies create spaces that are vibrant and alive. There are also strong measures in place to protect habitats on land and in the water and consequently, the spa group’s business objectives include plastic free policies, electric transport and biodegradable cleaning products.

Staff wellbeing

The Six Senses Group recognises that its care for guests would be meaningless if it did not first care for its own people and the families and communities they are part of in each location.

Giving credence to this policy, indigenous designs from local architects and artisans are ever present; food comes from local farmers and fishermen; and Six Senses’ knowledge of the best fishing holes, diving spots and therapeutic products and practices is founded on local relationships.

Six Senses Fort Barwara India

"OUR WAY of referring to our EMPLOYEES AS HOSTS and TREATING THEM AS PARTNERS IMPACTS POSITIVELY on their dedication to all the SUSTAINABILITY PROJECTS. Our hosts are the GLUE THAT BIND GUESTS to our RESORTS, in an emotionally"

Green full circle

One of the many practices that I think brings green full circle at Six Senses (and is achievable for any spa) includes the establishment of an organic garden at all the properties. These gardens provide each resort’s kitchen with fresh herbs, vegetables and fruits.

The gardens also produce a range of ingredients for the spas, as well as for the Alchemy Bars, which provide signature immersive experiences and are distinctively Six Senses. Each Alchemy Bar is a unique space dedicated to learning and fun, where spa therapists guide guests through a variety of natural and from-the-garden personal care ingredients. Guests are encouraged to feel the textures and smell the aromas of these ingredients and then create their own scrubs, hair or face masks and herbal poultices or steam bundles. What a marvellous way to engage guests with sustainability in action!

Earth Labs

Six Senses also created Earth Labs at its properties, with a slightly different sustainability focus. Each serves as a place dedicated to engagement and innovation, where Six Senses communicates current work projects at each resort, such as marine conservation, forestry or farming initiatives, harnessing renewable energy from solar or biomass, and bottling drinking water.

Six Senses Shaharut Israel

Earth Lab’s seed bank also makes it easy for guests to grow organic produce back home by providing an unconventional but meaningful seed souvenir.

Recently, Six Senses established a library of Zero Waste DIY tutorials, such as making your own toothpaste, which anyone can access, on the group’s YouTube channel.

It is not just this group’s philosophy of sharing that is evident in abundance. Each resort’s consumption data for water, energy and waste is available at each Earth Lab and open to scrutiny by guests, employees and the visiting public. It is, after all, only possible to manage one’s sustainability performance against the backdrop of a process of measurement.

Recognition

Six Senses’ success in getting sustainability right, making sure that it keeps track of its performance and being transparent about both its successes and failures, have culminated in the many sustainability awards that it has achieved. This includes the recent Travel + Leisure’s Global Vision Awards, which recognise companies who proactively protect communities and environments and inspire industry colleagues and travellers to do their part.

Q&A with Kent Richards

Kent Richards is the Corporate Operations Director (Spa & Wellness) of the Six Senses Group and I met up with him at Professional Beauty’s World Spa Convention in Johannesburg, last August.

Richards’ career in the wellness industry spans over 30 years, starting out with a focus on the fitness side of living a vital life. He started his career in the spa industry about 10 years ago and moved to Six Senses after an inspiring discussion with CEO Neil Jacobs. I asked him the following questions.

How does Six Senses maintain a high level of sustainability awareness and action amongst its staff?

KR: I would ascribe much of the group’s success to our philosophy of not telling people what to do, but rather to let them do what they do best. There is an intrinsically close bond between people and nature. Six Senses also creates an environment where fun concepts are designed around the integration of nature into wellness and it was from this that conscious sustainability actions followed.

Our way of referring to our employees as hosts and treating them as partners impacts positively on their dedication to all the sustainability projects. Our hosts are the glue that bind guests to our resorts, in an emotionally meaningful way.

Are there any challenges that you had to overcome in following your green philosophy?

The Six Senses group has expanded very quickly in diverse global destinations and this required a different way of thinking to maintain its core philosophy of interconnectedness. A decision was made to use senior management as cultural ambassadors for the group.

Much of my work this year has been to travel to all the group properties to help instil and maintain a unified culture. Another rewarding practice was to appoint local sustainability advisors and directors for every property. This allowed for the individual characteristics of the community and environment to reflect authentically at each location. The success of this practice has become evident from the unique characteristic of each Earth Lab.

Are there specific Six Senses green successes from which other spas can benefit?

Some of the successes include the business strategy of encouraging each property to adapt a circular economy. For example, in some properties goats and chickens are used to maintain/ inhibit plant growth, to fertilise and to provide food to guests and hosts alike. The organic gardens are another form of an in-house circular economy.

Are there any initiatives that will enjoy special attention this year?

One of the important objectives of Six Senses is to eradicate plastic consumption altogether. Initially this focused on the exclusion of single use plastic items, but this was just a tip of a very big iceberg. A comprehensive plastic reduction strategy now involves the elimination of all plastic. This is an extensive exercise as plastic is used in building materials, appliances, furniture and fixtures and electronic equipment. Six Senses is participating in the Global Tourism Plastics Initiative and kicked off with a detailed due diligence report that guides the way forward.

Then there is Six Senses’ newest sustainability masterpiece, the net positive Svart resort in Norway. This project will raise awareness of the possibilities of regenerative travel and set a new standard in carbonneutral hospitality. It combines a futuristic design and technological innovation with earthy, organic materials that use the least embedded energy. The spa is in fragile and pristine glacial surroundings and so the development parameters are uncompromising – both to preserve and enhance the local environment and communities. Six Senses Svart is set to open in 2024 and I can’t wait.

Look out for Part III of the ‘Sustainability in action’ series of articles in the March 2023 issue of Professional Beauty, focusing on Lefay Resorts.

As turnkey sustainability practitioner, Charné le Roux advocates and influences sustainability in the wellness industry. Her work includes creating the Sustainable Spa Practitioner Course, GreenSpa Guide and GreenSpa Calculator. Email charne@greenspa.africa