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Colombo Courtyard has just been approved as a Good Market Travel vendor. South Asia’s first CarbonNeutral City Hotel, Colombo Courtyard has been CarbonNeutral certified for the past two years. They have now been recognised as an entity that has met the high standards set by the Good Market.
Colombo Courtyard has always focused on being sustainable. The interior of the hotel was designed by Sunela Jayewardene – one of Sri Lanka’s most revered environmental designers. Using recycled material to reduce the consumption of scarce resources, the five properties that make the hotel’s 32 rooms and outlets were artistically designed to be environmentally friendly. The floors in the lobby, wine lounge and library are made from bricks that made the walls in the previous property, while open spaces make up the many courtyards around the hotel, giving natural air a chance to circulate and cool the public areas of the property. Indigenous plants have been used around the hotel in many forms as well, most notably as separators in the form of bamboo walls that divide certain aspects of the hotel, separating the front of the hotel from the road and creating a backdrop by their poolside. In design, trees as old as 90 years were built around, so as not to destroy the flora already present. Majority of the arts and sculptures around the hotel too, were made from scrap metal, with their signature sculpture being a tree made of bicycle parts spanning three floors, courtesy of the brilliantly creative Prageeth Manohansa.
Apart from the arts and interior, they also do their best to reduce single use items such as plastic water bottles, and instead use reusable glass water bottles in all rooms and outlets. Inverter power saving A/Cs and LED lights are used to reduce electricity consumption, with solar panels being used to provide as much clean energy as possible. A rainwater collection system is also used.
Every year, Colombo Courtyard gets their Carbon Footprint calculated by the Carbon Consulting Company. This footprint is then offset with the purchase of carbon credits, which are bought to sponsor an activity that is beneficial to the environment and, as a spillover effect, the community around it.
These steps taken by Colombo Courtyard have made it possible for them to get Good Market Certification. With a motto of being ‘good for the planet, good for the country and good for you’, the Good Market has always been about helping and promoting businesses that benefit the health of individuals and the environment. By getting Colombo Courtyard on board, they are furthering their cause by bringing two groups of people – those that care about the environment, and those offering services that do not do it any harm – together.
With a mission of wanting to provide premium hospitality services, without the guilt of harming the environment, Colombo Courtyard is proud to be Good Market Certified. As their Managing Director Arun Thapar stated, “We hope to be able to increase awareness of climate change. With such radical changes happening around the world, being Carbon Neutral is the right way forward. It is the future that needs to happen now.”
