Situated on the edge of the Amazon Rainforest, São Bernardo do Campo is home to the vast Represa Billings dam that supplies water to 1,5 million people. In the city center, across 3 hotels, 464 rooms, 2 restaurants and 1 bar, the hotel teams strive to put sustainability and plastic alternatives at the heart of the guest experience and operations. In this episode, Deputy Manager Patricia Takahashi describes her desire to lead by example, diving deeper into the different initiatives that the hotel teams have implemented so far. 

Discover How Teams Are Reducing Single-Use Plastic and Managing Water at Adagio, ibis & ibis budget São Bernardo do Campo 

Working Together to Prioritize Sustainable Alternatives 

Let’s take a closer look at what teams are doing to find alternatives to plastic and reduce the environmental impact of operations. 

• Guest rooms: single-dose toilet amenities have been replaced by refillable dispensers and guests are encouraged to use fewer other single-use amenities. Plastic bags have been replaced by paper formats for guest laundry and removed from bins, saving more than 180,000 plastic bags a year.  
  
  

• Food & Beverage: plastic water bottles are no longer used, saving 38,000 bottles a year. Other plastic items have also been removed from the hotel restaurants and bars including plastic cups and coffee stirrers. Yogurt, butter and jam are now served in large jars and containers, and all takeaway packaging is made from paper. 

An Innovative Approach to Water Management 

Teams have already started collecting, treating and reusing greywater from sinks and showers in some hotel facilities – in 2022, this enabled them to save around 500,000 liters of water. In 2023, the hotels are keen to go further by cleaning and reusing underearth water throughout the hotel to become self-sufficient. The teams also plan to invest in a filtered water machine and encourage guests to refill reusable bottles, available at the hotel, directly at the machine.