Mangroves, kitchen gardens and fewer bottles: hotels that keep count

The word “sustainable” has found its way into every brochure, to the point where it no longer means anything. In Mauritius as elsewhere, the only way to see clearly is to look for the fact behind the word: a label awarded by an outside body, a figure for waste, an installation one can name, a natural area the hotel protects or opens to its guests.

The eight hotels that follow each have at least one such fact to show. Some hold a label, others have transformed their kitchen, their water or their minibar, others again open a nature reserve, a mangrove or a turtle protection programme to their guests. None claims to erase the footprint of a long-haul holiday; all reduce a measurable part of it.

At Palmar, on the east coast, SALT of Palmar has built its fifty-nine rooms, reserved for adults, around a principle carried through to the last detail. There is no buffet: dishes are cooked to order, and kitchen scraps and coffee grounds are composted, some ten to fifteen kilos of organic waste diverted every week. Water is filtered on site, which saves fifty thousand plastic bottles a year.

The rest follows the same line: refillable toiletries made on the island, beach baskets handwoven from recycled plastic, wrapping paper made from limestone, suppliers that are exclusively local. The library holds more than three hundred books, mostly by Mauritian authors, and every guest receives on arrival a guide written by Mauritians.

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Le Jadis Beach Resort & Wellness

★★★★★BalaclavaSee the hotelBook on Booking.com →

On Turtle Bay, at Balaclava, Le Jadis has tackled the question through water. The hotel has its own desalination plant, bottles its water on site, heats its water with the sun and irrigates its gardens with grey water. Its pools, thirty-four of them private and heated to twenty-eight degrees, are sanitised naturally, without chlorine.

The beach, naturally sheltered, is lined with endemic trees, close to the Balaclava and Turtle Bay marine park. It is a five-star hotel of fifty-four suites and one villa, where comfort does not depend on waste.

At Roches Noires, on the north-east coast, the Radisson Blu Azuri is Green Key certified, and its lagoon shelters a mangrove reserve. The hotel has made it a place of discovery: an ecological trail runs along the mangrove, and the kids’ club organises explorations and picnics there.

The nineteen villas with private pools look out over the mangrove from their terraces. On land, the programme combines the folk market at Flacq, bicycle outings, cave exploration and stargazing.

At Bel Ombre, on the south coast, Heritage Awali is Green Key certified. It shares with Le Telfair an estate of two thousand five hundred hectares, and its guests have access to the Bel Ombre nature reserve, explored on foot, by four-by-four, by quad or by buggy, with picnics along the way.

The spa offers wellness walks in the Frédérica nature reserve, at extra cost. The hotel, which runs on an all-inclusive basis, is accessible to guests with reduced mobility, with one specially adapted Deluxe room.

At Anse la Raie, on the north coast, Lagoon Attitude is the home of the Attitude group’s marine commitment. Its Marine Discovery Centre runs workshops on the lagoon ecosystem for guests, for schools and for the local community; Ekol’O, a floating education centre, takes guests out on the lagoon with marine ecology specialists. An underwater snorkelling trail, kayaking in the mangroves and “blue nets” workshops complete the programme.

The kitchen follows suit: thirty per cent of menus and buffets are vegetarian or vegan, fruit and vegetables come from two partner Mauritian farmers, and the minibar gives way to a bulk shop. At the Seabreeze bar, the hanging chairs and floor cushions are cut from recycled sailcloth. The hotel is reserved for adults.

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LUX* Le Morne

★★★★★Le MorneSee the hotelBook on Booking.com →

At the foot of Le Morne, on the south-west coast, LUX* Le Morne has set itself the goal of zero food waste: the hotel studies its guests’ habits, redistributes food to schoolchildren and composts its leftovers. The minibar is replaced by the Tropical Bar, pre-ordered before arrival, snacks, drinks and even sunscreen.

The landscape does the rest: Le Morne Brabant, a World Heritage site, can be climbed from the hotel, and the Black River Gorges are within hiking distance.

On the beach at Belle Mare, in the east, LUX* Belle Mare takes part in a sea turtle conservation programme that guests can join. The decoration itself belongs to the place: the tables in the suites are moulded in sand by a local craftsman.

The hotel welcomes families while reserving part of the main pool, part of the beach and the entire spa for adults.

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Shanti Maurice Resort & Spa

★★★★★Saint-FélixSee the hotelBook on Booking.com →

At Saint-Félix, on the south coast, Shanti Maurice spreads over some fifteen hectares, surrounded by forests and beaches, with a coral reserve offshore. Its five restaurants follow a farm-to-table approach, with a kitchen garden and a herb garden, and picnic spots are laid out across the estate; a wellness chef can draw up a meal plan for the whole stay.

A hotel is not a nature reserve, and none of these eight claims to be one. But between a label awarded from outside, a mangrove opened to children and compost weighed every week, the difference from a mere promise is plain to see.