El Silencio Lodge & Spa has a Commitment to Sustainable Luxury
Eco-Friendly Practices & Initiatives in Costa Rica
At El Silencio Lodge & Spa, we’ve designed our lodging and amenities to protect and preserve the vital natural resources of Costa Rica. Our eco-friendly practices include rainwater harvesting, organic farming, and forest conservation. Guests can actively participate in our sustainability initiatives through educational programs and wildlife conservation efforts.
Sustainable Luxury
As part of our commitment to offering the very best eco-lodge experience in Costa Rica, El Silencio Lodge & Spa features an array of sustainable programs and initiatives to reduce our environmental footprint and protect and regenerate the vital natural resources of the surrounding cloud forest. El Silencio Lodge & Spa promises a sanctuary where visitors can reconnect with our planet’s inspiring melodies. But our holistic concept of wellness goes further.
We envision a tourism model that protects its stunning natural surroundings, fosters the personal growth of staff, and promotes the development of neighbor communities. Harmonizing the well-being of all stakeholders is key to El Silencio's uplifting experience, fully reflecting Costa Rica’s happiness mantra. Engaging the services of Responsible Business Alliance, El Silencio Lodge & Spa has designed a sustainability model that is perfectly tailored to its natural setting and social context El Silencio Lodge & Spa authentically reflects the cultural legacy and traditions of Sarchí, Zarcero, Naranjo, and other landmark regional towns. More than 95% of our staff is local, imprinting the guest’s experience with the signature hospitality that characterizes our human context. In turn, El Silencio Lodge & Spa gives back through employment opportunities, local purchases, and the growing relationship with its closest neighbor, the Los Bajos del Toro community.
El Silencio Lodge & Spa is proud to hold the maximum Elite Rating in Costa Rica's Certification of Sustainable Tourism. This initiative, championed by the Costa Rican Tourism Board (ICT), is a globally-respected tool to rate, monitor, and guide the country’s tourism industry. Its rigorous evaluation process contemplates water management, energy conservation, waste disposal and recycling, positive relations with surrounding communities, cultural authenticity, and guest safety.
Certification of Sustainable Tourism
El Silencio Lodge & Spa has received Elite-level recognition by Costa Rica’s Certification of Sustainable Tourism (CST) as the government-sponsored program enters a new phase in responsible travel leadership.
Following years of attaining five-leaf certification, El Silencio Lodge has once again earned top distinction in Costa Rica’s newest version of its notable evaluation program. Now fully accredited by the Global Sustainable Tourism Council, the country’s revamped CST has earned worldwide validation as one of the industry’s most rigorous and thorough green accreditations.
Earning Elite recognition underscores the success of El Silencio Lodge & Spa's positive social and environmental stewardship and further highlights the continuity and growing sphere of influence of its outcomes. Sustainability Manager, Francisco Hidalgo expressed enthusiasm and reaffirmed El Silencio's commitment to remain at the forefront of a brand of hospitality that is rooted in integral forward-looking sustainability. "We are honored and inspired to forge ahead in pursuit of new green goals, including achieving Carbon Neutrality. Our five-year Strategic Plan entails broadening professional development opportunities for the local community, ramping up our organic farm's production, and setting up renewable energy systems (solar panels & micro hydroelectric plants). The challenges are sizeable, but the solutions entail even larger long-term benefits for all."
Our Environmental Awards Pride in Sustainability
Since the founding of the Hotel, different efforts have been made to reduce our footprint and protect the natural resources of the cloud forest; and in this way contribute to the health of the planet, evidence of the above are the 7 Awards of the Ecological Blue Flag Program from Costa Rica.
And what is the work that the Hotel has done to obtain each flag? In order to obtain these flags, the Hotel has promoted practices, projects and specific actions. Each flag is detailed below:
Agricultural
Best practices are applied to promote sustainable management of resources by creating programs that ensure the proper care of horses, trout, chickens; and in the case of the orchard, we take care of it under a biotechnology process. In addition, the most remarkable thing is the management of stingless bees, which are exclusive to tropical forests and are protected to repopulate the forest that is in regeneration.
Sustainable Home
The hotel confirms its culture of sustainability through the employees' home, where the people who live in this house operate with a plan that seeks to minimize the impacts generated, practice healthy lifestyle habits and demonstrate the conviction of employees with Sustainability.
Sustainable Mobility
Has been implemented, ease of transportation avoiding the generation of pollution unnecessarily, means of transportation such as e-bikes for the bicycle tour, electric carts for transportation inside the hotel and incorporating a free electric charging station for guests' vehicles.
Micro-basins
Dedicated to the protection of the Gorrión River that crosses the property of the Hotel, which is a low green category for the Gorrión River, complying with the Regulation for the Evaluation of the Quality of Surface Water Bodies No. 33903-MINAE-S. This category seeks to promote the responsible participation of people and communities in the restoration and protection of the country's micro-watersheds.
Protected Natural Area
El Silencio carries out the absolute conservation of more than 500 acres of cloud forest. This type of forest accounts for between 1% and 2.5% of all forests in the world. In addition, they have a wildlife monitoring system through camera traps.
Climate Change
The hotel has programs for adaptation, compensation, mitigation of climate change, through the monitoring of environmental impacts and the articulation of local actors such as local suppliers, NGOs or public institutions, with the aim of reducing climate risks and pollution.
Sustainable Construction
With the vision of offering new spaces for the enjoyment of the guest, the hotel has applied environmental impact analysis tools before and after construction, including aspects such as the training of builders, recycling or the measurement of energy and water consumption.
