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As a socially responsible business, Banyan Tree was founded with the core value of driving sustainable development. With the call to arms of embracing the environment and empowering the people, we seek to continue being an agent of social and economic development through responsible tourism. Our triple bottom line (economy, society and environment) help direct our sustainable development by inspiring associates, guests, and partners to take a wider consideration encompassing a long term view when making business decisions.
Environment
Since its founding, Banyan Tree has sought to protect the natural environment. The importance of safeguarding the environment is central within our goal of sharing the original beauty of any location with guests and friends. This includes ensuring each resort fits into the local setting in a sensitive, meaningful manner.
Opened in 2002, Banyan Tree is situated in the scenic Intendance Bay along the Southwestern coastline of Mahe. The resort features contemporary Creole architecture in its 60 pool villas backed on one side by a costal wetlands and the beach on the other. Our all-white bungalows blend in with the archipelago’s colonial history and idyllic island ambience. Built using natural indigenous materials mostly supplied by local traders, the villas reinforce the sense of place that is a hallmark of all Banyan Tree resorts.
Banyan Tree increased its commitment to tackle the issues of climate change by launching Greening Communities in 2007. Banyan Tree’s group wide environmental initiative targeting climate change, Greening Communities challenges our resorts to plant 2,000 new trees per year for the next 10 years. While the initiative will offset a small amount of the globally produced atmospheric carbon dioxide, the main goal is to drive greater awareness of climate change among our communities, associates, and guests. We started with 7 initial locations in Thailand (Phuket and Bangkok), Indonesia (Bintan), Maldives, Seychelles, China (Lijiang), and Australia (Cairns) in 2007 and will continue ramping up in the coming years. Resorts were tasked to plant non invasive species on protected locations such as schools or parks where any newly planted trees have a significantly high likelihood of long term longevity. In the Seychelles we planted 300 Veloutier trees along the beach line near the resort in the Summer of 2007.
In 2007, Banyan Tree launched a group wide effort to monitor and systematically reduce the carbon emissions from its resorts. While much of this effort was more internally focused to fine tune and enhance the overall environmental management strategy, this effort has lead to a programme launching in 2008 to reduce energy and water consumption by each resort while enhancing waste management practices at each location. The overall goal is to reduce consumption and carbon emissions by 10% every year from 2006 levels between 2008 and 2010.
Formalised in the last part of 2007, the group environmental management strategy requires each resort to have environmental management officers specifically to monitor power consumption, water consumption and waste production and reduce consumption by at least 10% every year.
Banyan Tree Seychelles celebrated World Wetland Day on 2 February 2007 to raise awareness of the value and importance of wetlands, a vital part of the natural coastal defense system. To celebrate, 70 primary and secondary school students participated in guided tours of the local wetlands provided by the Seychelles Ministry of Environment Wetlands Unit, followed by a cleanup effort removing trash and invasive species of plants from the wetlands. To help sustain the message throughout the year, similar wetlands talks and clean up days were conducted every quarter to bring together students, resort associates, guests, and local authorities to support the health of the wetlands and raise awareness.
Associates conduct regular surveys during turtle nesting season to monitor and report nesting activity to MCSS (Marine Conservation Society Seychelles), helping to ensure protection of turtle habitats.
Community
With the mandate of empowering people, Banyan Tree is quick to recognise the necessity of building community capacity, in every location that we are in. As an agent of social and economic development, we realise the potential of tourism to hire from the local workforce, giving training and marketable skills to raise the overall level of community prosperity.
Sustaining village development, preserving and promoting traditional cultures and crafts are part of Banyan Tree Gallery’s business ethos as a socially responsible tourism retailer. Committed to showcasing and supporting community-friendly and eco-friendly products and projects, we have cultivated a wide network of over 40 village producers and project partners around the region.
Banyan Tree firmly believes in the empowering potential of education. In many developing areas, access to education facilities unfortunately remains somewhat of a luxury. By working with communities to remove barriers to education, we seek to allow community members to achieve greater future heights via continued and enhanced opportunities. Supporting 65 children between the ages of 2 to 7 years, The Children’s House, Bel Air, is the only Montessori preschool in Seychelles. Banyan Tree built capacities for two teachers by funding distance learning courses to upgrade teaching skills.
In 2007, Banyan Tree launched Seedlings, a group wide initiative to support communities by building capacities of young people. A concerted effort to harness Banyan Tree’s core competencies to support enhanced long term prosperity within communities, Seedlings aims to guide youths at risk of societal exclusion to achieve what may have otherwise remained beyond their means. The effort starts with mentorship, continues with scholarship, and completes with internship as a means to provide young adults with the motivation and means to complete their education and successfully enter the labour force as adults. In the Seychelles we support 3 students aged 10 to 12.
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