This crisis, like most that we have been through, will eventually end. But, can we learn from this crisis to collaborate as a world and solve Global Warming? questions Sonu Shivdasani, as he shares some lessons and learning from his award-winning sustainable tourism project in Soneva Fushi, Maldives
I have been fortunate enough to have experienced many crises during my lifetime. My choice of the word ‘fortunate’ is deliberate. The Chinese word for Crisis is two characters: ‘danger’ and ‘opportunity’. According to Lao Tzu, the Chinese writer and philosopher, ‘Good fortune has its roots in disaster’. And, over the years, I have come to understand these words and have realised that these crises are opportunities to learn, grow and develop. Certainly, we have no control over the hand that we are dealt, but we have total control on how we play it. I have realised that if we consider a crisis in a positive way, we can always find an opportunity to learn and develop and make our lives more enriching as a result.
Climate Crisis: the crisis that will only get worse
While the current global health emergency will end, unfortunately, this hopeful scenario will not be the case with global warming. It is an ongoing situation which will affect each and every one of us. And it highlights our interconnectedness.
Climate experts believe that we are near a tipping point of no return. Some believe we have already passed it. We already have 400 parts per million of CO2 in the atmosphere. Even if we reduced our carbon emissions considerably and followed the targets established in Paris in 2016, we will still hit 500 parts per million.
Even if we were to slam on the brakes and turn around, we would not be able to because nature itself would continue the global warming process as a result of feedback loops, such as methane escaping from below the Arctic and the Antarctic, less reflection from glaciers that have disappeared, warmer seas emitting CO2 rather than absorbing them and so on.
The warming planet has already killed more people today than the current global pandemic that has brought us under siege: In 2003, the European heatwave killed as many as 2,000 people a day and 35,000 Europeans died. In 2010, 55,000 people died during a Russian heatwave in which 700 people in Moscow died every day because of the heat. In 2016, during the heatwave that besieged the Middle East, temperatures in Iraq broke 100°F (37.7°C) in May, 110°F (43.3°C) in June, and 120°F (48.8°C) in July. Temperatures seldom dropped below 100°F, and only at night. We survive in a very fragile ecosystem that we are undermining. Our actions to date have already caused more death, misery and disaster than COVID-19 ever will.
This pandemic will end but the important question is whether the bond we have with the way we live and our daily reality has been sufficiently broken, and whether we can attach ourselves to a new reality and a new way of doing things; or if we will just go back to our old ways.
A break with the past
It is so important, in the midst of this current crisis, that we take this opportunity to change our values, our priorities, and importantly, how we live our lives. So, how would this new reality look? Let me share our Soneva experience with you.
At Soneva, our core purpose is engaging and imaginative “Slow Life”. So, being sustainable is part of our DNA, and we strive to limit the negative environmental impact of our activities — something which is both difficult as well as critical for a company which operates resorts in remote places of pristine, natural beauty.
We may not always meet our own high standards, but we are very clear about our responsibilities as custodians of the communities we operate in. Since our guests fly to the Maldives from all over the globe, this commitment is somewhat complicated so our response to our social and environmental responsibilities is as much global as it is local. Let me explain:
Twelve years ago, I noticed a huge number of plastic water bottles washed up on our beaches at Soneva Fushi in the Maldives. We decided not to point fingers at those who were allowing their water bottles to spoil our oceans as we were still serving bottled water in our resort and were therefore still part of the problem. So we took the decision to stop offering branded bottle water, and instead serve filtered, mineralised, alkalised, and bottled-on-site water in reusable glass bottles. Today, all the revenues from our water sales go to the Soneva Foundation to fund the work of charities such as Water Charity and Thirst Aid, and more recently, Soneva Namoona.
Soneva Namoona, which we launched in 2019, aims to solve a problem that has bedevilled the Maldives for a generation: how to properly dispose of waste. Presently, island communities burn their garbage in toxic, open bonfires; meanwhile significant amounts of waste, especially single-use plastics, washes up on the beaches, litters the jungle, and smothers the coral reefs. Soneva Namoona is a partnership between Soneva Fushi, the three nearby Baa Atoll Island communities of Maalhos, Dharavandhoo, and Kihaadhoo, and international NGO Common Seas. The partnership seeks to provide a blueprint for all Maldivian islands on how they can cleanly and effectively manage their waste, reduce the use of single-use plastics, and inspire a love for the natural environment. (Recycle, Reduce, and Inspire).
In the middle of 2019, we achieved a first, we installed the first glass water bottling centre on a regional island. Traditionally, the water consumed in restaurants, guest houses and generally by the public on islands is from plastic bottles from the water bottling company in Male, the capital of the Maldives. Soneva Namoona Water filters and mineralises the desalinated island water and then places it in sterilised glass water bottles. When the bottles are returned, the user achieves a 20% saving on their water purchase. So, they are financially better off. As I write, Soneva Namoona water has sold the equivalent of, and avoided 60,000 plastic bottles.
Collaborations and innovations
In February 2020, we celebrated another Maldives’ first: Maalhos became the first island in the country to end the practice of burning its garbage in open bonfires. This was made possible by the opening of the island’s Eco Centro waste to wealth centre, funded by Soneva and modelled on Soneva Fushi’s own Eco Centro. The Maalhos Eco Centro is a waste-processing facility that sorts all the waste into different types such as plastic, glass, tin and wood. It compacts, crushes, and chips it where possible, and sends it off the island for recycling. Later in 2020, we hope to open Eco Centros on Dharavandhoo, Kihadhoo. It is encouraging to see that many of the major hotel companies have now started to take the path that Soneva did back in 2008 and eliminate the single use of plastic in their properties including, most importantly, plastic water bottles.
Another result, following the 2013 Soneva Symposium, was Soneva Fushi’s establishment of a ‘Learn To Swim’ programme with our neighbouring island Eydhafushi. It is remarkable that many children in our island nation, the Maldives, do not swim. A fear of the water is compounded by a nationwide waste problem that sees local island beaches used as a dumping ground for household waste. By teaching children to swim, we hope that they will learn to love their ocean, and when they love it, they will protect it. We are now looking to scale this programme to offer intensive swimming programmes across the Atoll, partnering with other resorts, local and national NGOs, environmental awareness groups and government ministries. Supported by filmmaker and National Geographic adventurer Jon Bowermaster, who made a documentary film of the swimming programme, we aim to develop a model of environmental inspiration and education that can be applied around the world.
These examples of Symposium initiatives give an insight into what we can achieve when we collaborate.
In a post COVID-19 world, consumers will be more conscious of the impact that they will have on both nature and the communities which they visit. The example of the Costa Brava in the 1970s will never be allowed to happen again, not just by the Government, but by the visitors themselves.
I have to specifically mention air travel which, while it is a big part of an individual’s ecological footprint, is a very small contributor to greenhouse gases and its contribution is less than the negative impact of the beef and dairy industry.
Since my diagnosis of cancer and the changes to my lifestyle that I adopted, our resorts have also followed suit and adapted their menus. Our chefs have, as one of their key performance indicators, the reduction of sugar, dairy, white flour, beef in our menus. Beef consumption has reduced by 75%. Dairy consumption has reduced considerably as well. It is our goal to bring the consumption of these two ingredients almost to zero. Apart from being good for our guests’ health, this approach has also been very good for the environment. After the built environment, the dairy and beef environment are the next biggest contributor to greenhouse gases. According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, animal agriculture and the associated deforestation is responsible for more than 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, and is expected to increase 80% by 2050. This dwarfs air travel, which is at 2% to 3%, and transportation as a whole, which is at about 8% of global greenhouse gases.
We have adopted this approach and made it central to our core purpose. The private sector has a huge role to play in the solutions agenda and it would be valuable if all corporations looked back to the history books and remembered that having a purpose should be central to their mandate — and that this contribution should be measured and valued as robustly as any financial returns.
Natural Inspiration
At Soneva, we have always used nature as an inspiration for our innovation. I have long been a fan of the biologist and author Janine Benyus who describes innovations inspired by nature in her book Biomimicry. For example, Leonardo Da Vinci imagined the first helicopter by closely observing the behaviour of the Hummingbird. It was Leonardo’s drawings that helped Igor Sikorsky in his invention of the first helicopter. So, the helicopter is the result of biomimicry.
It is my hope that in a post-COVID-19 era, we will become more sensitive to nature’s innovations. We will try to work in harmony with nature rather than try to battle it. It’s my opinion that this terrible virus came about because we ignored nature’s laws.
Let me share with you a recent success at Soneva Fushi which exemplifies this point. In the middle of last year at Soneva Fushi, we set a target to become the first island in the Maldives to be completely mosquito free. We decided to trap mosquitoes by studying their habits and creating a natural trap. We have installed 500 buckets throughout the island. In each bucket is a little swab that mimics human sweat and the smell of lactic acid. We then mix sugar and baking soda and create a pump system to generate CO2. So, these traps smell and breathe like a human being. The mosquitoes are lured into the net and then cannot escape.
We started this initiative in June 2019 and ended our contract with Rentokil, our pest-control operator. No more spraying. Instead we would use only these buckets. In the first days of implementing this, our 500 buckets caught about 9,000 mosquitoes a day, on average 20 mosquitoes per bucket. The catch on the island now has reduced to low double digits. We have two mosquitoes on the island, the Aedes and the Culex. The Culex is nearly extinct and we hope that the Aedes will soon follow. It is my hope that this will be a perfect example of how, by closely following and understanding the laws of nature, and innovating around it, we can find effective solutions.
The current global pandemic has highlighted how interconnected we are, and how important it is that as humanity on planet earth, we break through our national boundaries and collaborate together in order to preserve life on earth as we know it.
If we do not change, and just go back to business as usual after this crisis, it will be a sad, lost opportunity. And, all the suffering that we have been through over these past months will have been for nothing.
The writer is the CEO and Joint Creative Director of Soneva