The ASEAN MICE-award winning Luang Prabang View presents a model for sustainability that reaches into every area of the hotel’s operation. Though the property saves and makes thousands of dollars through its sustainable practices, it focusses on doing what they feel is the right thing. Luang Prabang View’s staff see sustainability as a way of life combined with common sense, and they integrate it into their daily workload.
Guests can easily notice many of the Luang Prabang View’s sustainable practices in their rooms and around the hotel. Other initiatives are less apparent. Below is a list showing the reach of the hotel’s eco-friendly policies.
Sustainable Rooms
No More Plastic
Energy Saving Lighting
The hotel has some 16,000 lamps, and is moving to use 100% LED light bulbs, which will annually save more than $5,000 in kw/hrs.
Recycling Wastewater: The “Grey Pond” System
The hotel has replaced conventional septic tanks with the grey pond system that uses three ponds to clean waste water for use in the gardens and grounds. The grey pond system presents less sludge than septic tanks, which lowers pumping expenses.
Animal Farm
Locals breed and raise a variety of animals at the hotel’s on-site farm, which is expanding to other pastures in the area. Some are sold, while others are used in the kitchen and can even reach the dining rooms. Meet Luang Prabang View’s livestock and fowl.
The Edible Garden
What started as an on-site herb and vegetable garden to help feed the staff canteen has expanded into a small farm with support from the hotel. The local farmer operating this Edible Garden, now sells thousands of dollars in organic herbs and vegetables to Luang Prabang View that land on your plate. The Edible Garden also grows fruit and flowers, and only uses regenerative or sustainable plants.
Enjoy a salad or dish with vegetables grown just metres away. Alongside staples like lettuce, tomatoes and cherry tomatoes, spinach, and cabbage and celery, you’ll find plates with home-grown mustard greens, winged beans, and Chinese kale.
The chefs tweak meals with herbs, spices and mints grown at the hotel. Hints of tarragon, basil, thyme, coriander, and sage spring dishes to life. You can also taste the garden’s mint, peppermint, and dill, along with the ever-present parsley.
Fruit trees and plants on the property can also make it to your plate. Freshly picked papaya, bananas, and pandanus are presented on dessert and room platters. Eggplant and luffa often find a place on your dish, and lemons are there for the picking. The hotel even packages appetizers and desserts with banana leaves.
The Compost Heaps
Luang Prabang View’s nine, 1.5×3-metre compost heaps annually produce a ton of natural fertilizer to rejuvenate the soil. This saves the hotel hundreds of dollars in soil purchases a year. The process is quick and simple. Staff mix waste, leaves, branches, cut grass, shrub trimmings, fruit peelings, and coffee grounds, water it down, add paper and card board, and remove plastic and big sticks. After 45 days to three months, they sieve the compost and mix with garden soil as a nutrient. Rice husks are then added for body. Money saved goes to the gardening and farm team to purchase more seeds and feed.
Wet Waste
The Animal Farm’s menu presents dishes from restaurant waste…and livestock love it, especially pigs. Gardeners boil fruit peelings, wet food waste, and coffee grounds along with salt to come up with food to nutritiously feed the farm animals while saving money.
Effective Microorganisms
Luang Prabang View replaces chemicals with Effective Microorganisms (EM), produced from hotel waste, for use as a natural, eco-friendly soil fertilizer, kitchen and bath cleaner, insecticide, and drain cleaner. It also saves the hotel thousands of dollars in bio-cleaning purchases. Ingredients come from fresh fruit peelings, vegetables, and termite nests mixed with molasses, and takes 45 days to mature.
Recycle & Save –
Luang Prabang View hunts for garbage to recycle, and makes hundreds of dollars a year doing it. Below is a sample list of items recycled for cash every year.