When I sit down with other business leaders to discuss what topics we expect to continue to develop in 2023, my answer is always the same, sustainability. If it wasn’t already before, I believe sustainability should be at the heart of everything we do in the sector this year, another year of forward progression toward safeguarding our planet for the future. For businesses, an expectation to comply, rather than a trend will go away in time.
At Gates Hospitality, it’s our pledge to continue to get better. Building on what we’ve already implemented throughout our business, 2023 is a year to sustain both ours and the planets future. A commitment to continue to invest both resources and hours in finding solutions to sustainability challenges.
Although you might not have heard us shout about them before and in many ways because it’s something we fundamentally believe in, we believe we perhaps shouldn’t, sustainability has been a focus of ours from the very beginning. And let’s be honest, with Six Senses Zighy Bay, a brand that continues to pioneer sustainability in the sector as part of our portfolio, we are blessed to be learning and inspired by the best.
We took the decision to remove all single-use plastics in 2019 and continue to ensure that both our kitchen and operational teams adopt this way of thinking. We educate new team members on our philosophy, and we promote an environment of everyone being responsible to make changes for the better.
We offer filtered house water across all our outlets, all served in reusable glass bottles, our straws are made of biodegradable corn starch, and we’re always looking to do more. But for a business that relies on a supply chain, whether it be the ingredients that our chefs use in the kitchen or indeed the packaging which takes them there, it’s also important to ensure that our suppliers are on the same path as we are and are aligned to our sustainability goals.
We’re aware that if ingredients are being flown thousands of miles before they reach us in the kitchens, then all the initiatives (and, indeed freshness) can be undone. We might not be able to cultivate an organic garden and farm like Zighy Bay, but we strive to source locally, and because of this we have targeted a minimum of 25 percent of all ingredients to be sourced from within the UAE by the end of 2023.
We’re proud to be working closely with team at Bustanica, the first vertical grow site in the UAE that produces over 1 million kilos of pesticide-free greens per year and pledge to continue to ensure that sustainability is a number one priority when it comes to procuring new suppliers, as well as changing our menus based on seasonality.
And sometimes we are aware that this might come at an additional expense. Although great strides have been made over the past 12 months to ensure sustainable alternatives have become cheaper, they are still more expensive than their plastic alternatives. Individual collection and segregation of waste also come at an additional cost, but despite this, it’s something that we aim to increase from 40 percent to 60 percent by the end of the year.
We’ll also continue to ensure that 100 percent of our cooking oils are recycled to biofuel within the UAE. As a business, it’s a cost that we choose to absorb, as for us, the alternative for not doing so is far more costly. We urge others to do the same.