Sustainability and Earth Lab
The opportunity to travel beyond the destination into first-hand discovery, from zero waste in the Earth Lab to replanting coral and contributing to women’s empowerment in local communities.
Earth Lab is our ecology area where we communicate our sustainability initiatives, activities, innovations and partnerships. Depending on the resort, this might encompass marine conservation, forestry or farming initiatives, or supporting local schools and community projects. Earth Lab also displays each resort’s consumption data including water, energy and waste.
Earth Labs are pioneers in waste to wealth, and are full of ideas for guests to learn what to do with unwanted items. Fruit peel can be turned into hydrosol, which is a steamed distillation from a plant. This clear liquid can then be used in refreshing face-toners, mosquito repellents, air fresheners and multi-surface, chemical-free cleaning solutions. To discourage single-use plastic, natural wrapping can be made out of bee’s wax.
On land, sustainability teams work closely with chefs and landscaping teams to maintain organic gardens, mushroom huts and chicken palaces. Each garden is designed to maximize the productivity of local varieties of fruits and vegetables, while also providing walkable plots to explore and forage.
Where possible, we use our purchasing power to influence suppliers in responsible practices and favor locally-sourced and environmentally-sound products. Six Senses Yao Noi, together with the Women’s Club of Koh Yao Noi, provides batik-painting lessons where guests can learn the art, take home some beautiful souvenirs and support the local community. Rise Beyond the Reef works with women in remote Fijian communities, teaching them to create and market beautiful homewares and crafts made using traditional skills. We love these items, and use them to decorate our villas and restaurants – and guests can also browse the latest collections in our boutique. Each item has a story, and all profits go supporting the artisan and their rural community.
From the land to the water, and with so many of our properties situated with their feet in the sea, marine teams are uniquely placed with the resources to be change-makers for conservation. The five hectares of protected seagrass meadows surrounding Six Senses Laamu create a mosaic of blue hues in the shallow water between its overwater jetties. Seagrass is a secret weapon in the fight against climate change, since it removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. It is also critical as a nursery for juvenile reef fish; protector of coastlines and coral reefs and home to the endangered green sea turtles that feed on it. In addition to being a powerhouse for protecting the marine environment, seagrass benefits guests, who say they see on average 12 turtles, sharks and rays over the course of their stay.
Further off shore on the reef, corals have been under threat due to global warming and climate crisis. Because of the sudden increase of sea surface temperatures, the corals expel the algae living in symbiosis within their cells that provide up to 90 percent of their food requirements, making them white and resulting in widespread mortality (a process called coral bleaching). In response, Six Senses Zil Pasyon built an underwater nursery in 2017 to encourage the heat-resilient strains of coral to grow so that it can be replanted back onto the reef to create a healthy and self-sustaining ecosystem.
By August of 2018, a total of 1,750 fragments were stored in the nursery and the transplantation process started in October 2018. Grown corals were fixed onto the rocky seafloor or on old dead coral using a mix of water-resistant materials. Within three months, the team was delighted to see that the coral tissue had started to grow. The project was completed in May 2019 with 1,339 successfully transplanted corals over the 1,750 grown colonies. At the beginning of the project the sizes varied between 1.20 to 4.3 inches (three to 11 centimeters) and in the final stage some of them reached an approximate size of 15.74 inches (40 centimeters).
A big event at resorts such as Six Senses Con Dao is the opportunity to meet baby turtles. Green sea turtles return to the beaches in Con Dao to lay their eggs from May to September, and guests can join a nightly tour to the nesting grounds to experience this natural spectacle first hand. From mid-August, it is common to see the hatchlings ease their way out of the ground and make a dash for it to the sea.
There’s no age limit to being an ocean advocate. The next great conservation innovation will likely come from someone under the age of 20. That’s why Maldives Underwater Initiative (MUI) has launched its Junior Marine Biology program to educate and empower these young marine conservationists from ages 6 to 16. There are plenty of resorts in the Maldives where guests can “be a marine biologist for the day” but the seven-module program at Six Senses Laamu, with one-on-one mentoring from the 10-person team, gives children the tools to continue their conservation crusade when they return home.
Live this experience first-hand in our properties
China
Six Senses Qing Cheng Mountain
Fiji
Six Senses Fiji
France
Six Senses Residences Courchevel
Israel
Six Senses Shaharut
Maldives
Six Senses Laamu
Oman
Six Senses Zighy Bay
Portugal
Six Senses Douro Valley
Seychelles
Six Senses Zil Pasyon
Thailand
Six Senses Samui
Thailand
Six Senses Yao Noi
Vietnam