R[e]MATTERS: Sharing innovations in sustainability at all levels

Sustainability has been at the core of WATG’s design philosophy since 1945.

Our founders believed in an approach that responded to a site’s cultural, social and natural environments, designing and building with the intention of permanence and timelessness. This still rings true today, with every project considered from a perspective of humility and respect.

Drawing upon this, WATG and Wimberly Interiors’ Singapore Associates Group recently hosted an evening of discourse on sustainability.

Titled R[e]MATTERS, the event invited a selection of brand partners to showcase their innovations in sustainable materials, alongside a panel discussion with Accor, XCO2, Shaw Industries and BYO Living.

Encouraging everyone – designers, suppliers and operators alike – to ask what sustainability means today, the thought-provoking conversation considered a broad range of facets – including sustainability’s role in the decision-making process at all levels.

Our founders believed in an approach that responded to a site’s cultural, social and natural environments.

We must ensure that when we inherit something, it’s an attractive hotel not just financially but also environmentally.

Here are some excerpts from the panel discussion:

“The big success story for luxury hospitality and resorts is that the cost of renewables has plummeted over the last ten years, allowing clients to consider 40-50% penetration of renewals on resort projects, as the economics can now make sense. Also, guests today are far more attuned – they want to know and understand what sustainability measures are being implemented, resulting in a push coming from the operators, which is excellent.” — Matt Carlisle, Associate Director, XCO2

“Planet 21 is a program we set up in 2015, including about 80 actions and principles that our hotels must comply with. We’re now managing the single-use plastic transition for 5,300 hotels in 110 countries which is quite the exercise, but we’re learning a lot.

As an operator, we’re working on having more influence further upstream. Some decisions are made before a hotel brand is chosen, and we can’t influence at that stage, but as we become involved with discussions, we can lay those foundations down. We must ensure that when we inherit something, it’s an attractive hotel not just financially but also environmentally.” — Andrew Cameron, Global Sustainability Project Director, Accor

“At Potato Head in Bali, a world-renowned luxury beachfront hotel, we took a new approach using plastic bottle waste woven into a ventilation ceiling. At that time, around 2016, we were the only ones in the world to propose that. It was not easy because the weaving technique was done by hand, and we had to learn how to work with a new material. But we managed to pull it off. It’s almost 2,000 meters square. We used around two tons of plastic waste, reducing carbon emissions by about four tons.” — Lim Masulin, Founder, BYO Living

“We have a return program deeply rooted in the Cradle-to-Cradle philosophy. About 20 years ago, we worked with Will McDonough, an architect and one of the co-founders of Cradle-to-Cradle, on the first carpet to turn back into itself again. We were not talking about recycling it and donating it to a charity or burning it to make energy – we separated the yarn from the backing and made it back into yarn and the backing back into backing. Since 2006 we have recycled almost 1 billion pounds of post-consumer carpet. — Ace Le, Marketing Director, Shaw Industries