Sustainability

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 

• Key cards control electrical power including hot water tanks.
• Staff unplug all electrical devices in vacant Green Season rooms to decrease consumption.
• Large windows bring in more daylight to light up rooms.
• Housekeepers set room temperatures to 25°C (77°F)
• Housekeepers close window shades on hot days to lower air-conditioning use.
• The hotel records each room’s energy consumption.
• Staff only fill Green Season rooms’ minibars the day before arrivals.
• Fresh milk in containers have replaced foil creamer packets.
• Sugar containers have replaced paper sugar packets.
• The hotel provides cotton bags for shopping so guests can avoid bringing back purchases in plastic bags.
• The hotel has replaced plastic water bottles with refillable glass bottles.
• The hotel’s farm uses coffee pods to germinate seeds and start plants.
• Engineers clean air-conditioners’ condensers and compressors every four months.
• Hotel-grown orchids and aloe, and not cut flowers, clean and refresh the rooms’ air.
• A card notifies guests of the option to reuse towels.
• A room’s only plastic bag is in the toilet room, and it’s biodegradable.
• Double-flush toilets use between 6 and 9 litres of water.

No More Plastic

• The hotel has replaced plastic straws with paper, and is sourcing biodegradable/compostable alternatives.
• The hotel has replaced large black plastic bags with green netting for dry items such as tin cans and plastic bottles and bags.
• The hotel now employs reusable glass bottles for in-room drinking water.
• Restaurants use paper bags and biodegradable/compostable containers for take away.
• The hotel provides cotton shopping bags so guests can avoid receiving purchases in plastic bags.
• The gardener puts holes in foam and plastic cups and coffee pods to germinate and start plants.

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. 

• Pond 1: This 20×30-metre pond is 3 metres deep, and uses floating hyacinth to lessen the odour, and aquatic plants to help filter the sewage.
• Pond 2: Water from Pond 1 naturally flows into the 20×40-metre Pond 2 that is 4 metres deep. The pond is home to some 1,000 catfish and other fish, which thrive. This shows the water is getting better, and the hyacinth now overwhelms any odour.
• Pond 3: The 30×40 metre, 5-metre deep Pond 3 is the last stop in the grey pond system. The gardeners use this water in the gardens and grounds.

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 farm and hotel sell pigs.
• The ranch raises and breeds fowl populations including chickens, ducks, and turkeys.
• The kitchen uses chicken and duck eggs, as well as the chickens for Lao food and soups.
• Some eggs hatch, with grown chickens being sold.
• The small spread breeds and raises wild fowl for eggs required on the organic Lao and Chinese menus.
• Three types of chickens are bred and raised: Black Bone Indonesian, Japanese, and Vietnamese.

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.

• Plastic Bottles: 648 kg
• Beverage Cans: 89 kg
• Large Plastic Containers: 29 kg
• Boxes: 646 kg
• Old Steel: 168 kg
• Tissue and paper towel rolls: 337 kg
• Tetrapak Juice Bottles: 170 kg
• Paper: 288 kg
• Housekeeping Garbage: 462 kg