French Hotel sponsors plastic recovery in Brazil

Faced with the complex task of prioritizing practices that contribute to climate action and to meet their ESG agendas, companies are making important decisions to define the most urgent issues that must be addressed by their business model to minimize their negative impacts on the planet. The most urgent action is to minimize global warming, mainly by reducing Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Emissions, which are caused by a number of different factors, plastic pollution being one of them.Plastics generate GHGs at every stage of their life cycle, from the extraction of their raw materials - mainly from fossil fuels - followed by their manufacturing process, and even long after they have been discarded. Hotel Lancaster, a French city hotel, understands the need to address the plastic issue in their business, and it decided to tackle it in two different ways:

• Internally: by reducing the unnecessary use of plastic in the company's operations – replacing single-use toiletries, for instance, and finding alternatives that generate less waste.
• Externally: by supporting the recovery of plastic waste when it’s not possible to do it entirely in-house.

According to Lydérick Jadaud, the Director of the Hotel, the external factor is an important part of the transition to more internal practices. “As a hotel, we need to take action in line with guests’ needs, reduce our carbon footprint but keep the 5-star Hotel Lancaster experience that the guests are seeking by booking one of our rooms.” In order to be able to make a proper transition and still be responsible for their plastic waste, the hotel contacted Plastiks to help them find a recovery project to support, as a way to offset their remaining plastic usage.

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A balance between luxury and sustainability

The hotel director told us that the Lancaster Hotel Paris was looking for a solution to help them meet their plastic compensation agenda and they found that, through Plastiks, they could support a plastic recovery project from Brazil to give back to the Brazilian community, as it has been a growing clientele for them. This business case has demonstrated how the world is interconnected. That our businesses are affecting the livelihood of people all over, and that we can generate a positive impact wherever we decide to do so.Lydérick understands that plastic pollution is disrupting the whole world, but he recognizes that emerging countries are the most affected by it. We had a very nice conversation with him, and he shared with us the sustainable vision of the hotel, its current practices and the expected ones for the future. Find below a snippet of our conversation and find out more about his journey.Lydérick, tell us about the hotel's sustainability/ ESG journey so far? What brought the hotel to Plastic compensation?It has always been very important to Lancaster to find a good balance between the luxury hotel industry and sustainability. In recent years, we have made some important and positive changes in order to reduce our energy consumption and carbon footprint. For example, our in-room beauty products are now only available in large refillable containers and produced by a local company that only uses vegan and organic products.The hotel takes environmental actions such as changing sheets upon request, using local products in the kitchen with seasonal menus, collaborating with organic brands for in-room products, recycling used oil into organic fuel, and using silicone coasters instead of paper to avoid waste. We also ask our suppliers to commit, and we make sure of this before starting a partnership.And what is Lancaster's motivation to get involved in a project like PLASTIKS?As it is not always easy for a 5-star city hotel to take the next step, we wanted to take it with Plastiks and use NFTs as a transparent format to unite plastic credit sponsorship with customer engagement. Lancaster has sponsored Green Mining, a project that operates in Brazil, supporting the recovery of 15 tons of plastic waste, but we wanted to go a step further and make our guests accountable for plastic removal as well.Can you tell us more about how this worked? You said that the hotel sponsored the recovery of 15 tons of plastic, but how did you involve your client in this action?That’s right, we had already sponsored the recovery of 15 tons, by purchasing Plastic Recovery Guarantees (PRGs) - which are the plastic credits at Plastiks. As a following step, the hotel has created an NFT collection consisting of 15 NFTs, each representing one of our rooms. For each NFT sold, an extra ton of plastic is removed from nature and our customer decides which project will be supported. So you can understand better, instead of buying these rooms on a platform like Booking.com, our customers can use the Plastiks marketplace, and buy an NFT that gives them a night in our hotel + benefits, while we all raise awareness for the plastic issue and support plastic recovery projects together, in regions of the world that lack infrastructure, as this waste ends up in the environment and oceans that we all share.In closing, Lydérick, how important is this step for the future of sustainable tourism, especially for city hotels?For us, sustainability must become an important part of the hospitality industry, and especially in the city where it can be more difficult. It also allows us to show our guests that we are concerned by the current climate crisis. By using NFTs, we hope that we can share our engagement and reach an audience that shares the same values.We also want to take this opportunity to audit the amount of plastics that we still use in our hotel today, so that we can continue to neutralize our plastic usage by recovering it all around the world.

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You can learn more about the Lancaster Hotel & Green Mining business case by downloading the document here.How to connect your business with PlastiksJust like Lancaster Hotel, your company can also support plastic recovery projects by acquiring PRGs on our platform, and by doing so, contribute to improving their environmental and social impact, as well as achieving higher recycling rates worldwide. Your impact will be shown on your sustainability dashboard, that you can share with your customers, who will be happy to know that your company is committed to reducing plastic pollution.If your business is looking for ways to reduce its plastic footprint, but you’re unable to incorporate advanced plastic reduction practices in your core business, you can still make an impact with Plastiks. By connecting your business with Plastiks you can make sure that plastic is being recovered and recycled in affected areas of the world.Book a meeting