Our Best Environmental Sustainability Practices 2022

Our Best Environmental Sustainability Practices 2022

Our Best Environmental Sustainability Practices

Dear Friends,

The ride towards environmental sustainability is a great ride, but a rather rough one too. After 15 years of actions to become an eco-friendly hotel, here is an inventory of where we stand in 2022. 

General

• We recycle the hotel’s rubbish and encourage our guests to recycle too, by providing recycling in bins on each floor and relevant documentation in our hotel information booklet.
• Most of the detergents we use are Eco-labeled detergents. We also use traditional cleaning ingredients, such as vinegar and soda. 
• We provide our guests with free bicycles, so that they can avoid the use of their car while staying in our hotel. We also have a financial incentive for visiting us without a car, in the form of a discount if guests use public transport to come to us.
• We do not print guest invoices, sending them instead by email.
• We provide guests with reusable cotton shopping bags, in order for them to avoid using plastic bags.
• We monitor our practices by regularly sending out to our guests an environmental questionnaire, which allows them to rate them.
• We calculate our CO2 footprint using our hotel industry system HCMI. 

Dining

• Our breakfast, lunch and cafeteria menu includes no meat or fish. Instead we offer a tasty vegetarian and vegan cuisine.
• We provide no disposable food containers, using instead the ceramic bowls from the traditional yogurt that we buy from a local producer. 
• We provide no individually packaged food in disposable containers.
• Unfortunately tap water is not suitable for drinking in our village during the summer. Instead of buying innumerable 10lt water bottles for our water fountain, we strive to refill them our bottles at free water springs in nearby mountain villages.  
• We have eliminated plastic bottles of water in all our hotel’s departments and instead provide only returnable glass water bottles, including our complimentary bottle water in each apartment at check-in. 
• We participate in Greenpeace’s project StoPotitiMou, offering a discount to anyone using his/her takeaway cup when buying coffee from us. 
• We have eliminated the use of plastic straws and instead provide metal straws to our guests enjoying their drinks in our garden or in their apartment, and wheat straws for takeaway drinks.
• Instead of providing plastic or paper glasses for takeaway drinks, we offer our guests real recycled jars for their drinks.
• We strive to use only excellent quality local products from trusted producers, organic where possible, for all the meals that we serve.
• We are currently experimenting with reusable metal coffee pods for our Nespresso machine.
• Our homemade lemonade and jams are made with local organic fruits and organic sugar.
• Our homemade bread is made from organic flour, using our own sourdough.
• We are experimenting with the production of our own bee wraps, to use instead of plastic wraps wherever and whenever possible.
• The paper napkins we use are Eco-labeled.
• We have our own handmade composting bin, which we urge guests to use also.
• We upcycle our paper placemats into drawing paper for children.
• Fruits & vegetables are delivered to us in carton boxes and paper bags.

Accommodation

• We provide no single use amenities inside our apartments, with the exception of our homemade olive oil-soap, which is sustainably packaged in recycled paper. Left-over soap is collected and either grated and reused as washing machine detergent or gifted to charities.
• Instead of single use amenities we provide our guests with superior quality olive-oil based shampoo & body wash in a handmade refillable dispenser, created by a local Greek producer.
• We offer all our guests a complimentary returnable glass bottle of water.
• The toilet paper in our apartments is Eco-labeled. 
• The hot water for showering is heated primarily by solar panels.
• All our apartments have low-energy ceiling fans.
• All our apartments have their own air-conditioning units, which shut off automatically when a window or a door is opened, in order to avoid unnecessary use.
• There is an automatic system to shut off the electricity when guests leave their apartment. 

Covid-19 Hygiene Protocols

• We are providing our staff and guests with cotton masks, instead of single use masks.
• We urge our staff and guests to implement excellent hand hygiene with very frequent hand washing instead of the excessive use of single use plastic gloves.
• We use 100% organic vegetable ethanol disinfectant without petrochemicals, as well as a steam machine to disinfect public areas, in an effort to avoid excessive use of otherwise harmful chemicals.
• We use no single use plastics, preferring instead to increase the frequency of cleaning, disinfecting and quarantining. 

Eco Certifications