Responsible Travels

At Jetwing, our commitment to our environment and communities is unparalleled. Since our very beginning, and thanks to our family values, we have believed in building relationships and implementing sustainable measures in all activities. Sri Lanka is not just a country in our eyes; she is a destination that truly is an experience apart, steeped in heritage, wildlife and brimming with diverse culture. Through the Jetwing Eternal Earth Programme, we seek to preserve our home, to ensure that the generations to come enjoy this land for her riches.
The Jetwing Eternal Earth Programme is a multi-faceted programme, which is comprised of the following initiatives:

1. Corporate Social Responsibility: Ongoing projects carried out to assist the communities surrounding all Jetwing hotels:

- Trees For Life
‘Trees for Life’ is a Jetwing initiative undertaken as a responsible corporate citizen to contribute towards minimizing global warming and its effects for the benefit of the mankind. The core of the initiative is an ‘afforestation’ programme undertaken adjacent to St. Anne’s Church, Talawila in North-west Sri Lanka that may be replicated / adapted for many climatic zones as well as on the small scale. By carefully selecting tree species which grow only in Sri Lanka’s dry zone, ‘Trees for Life’ seeks to establish over a period of time a forested area with improved biodiversity in what was previously bare land. Jetwing will use the ‘afforestation model’, the process of its establishment and outcome to raise awareness targeting the younger generation. Each Jetwing Hotel has two foster schools in their respective areas and conducts educational and awareness programmes for the children on good ‘Earth Saving Practices (ESPs)’.

The first phase of ‘Trees for Life’ which ran from 2008 – 2011 resulted in over 3000 trees being planted in a model reforestation project undertaken at Hunas Falls Hotel. On the 20th January 2012, the second phase of ‘Trees for Life’ was re-launched at St. Anne’s Church in Talawila in the Kalpitiya Peninsula as a part of Jetwing’s 2012 Earth Day, where in a period of just over two months (as at 31st March 2012), over two hundred trees have been planted from pledge- makers across all Jetwing Hotels. Trees for Life involves and encourages hotel guests, staff and the local communities in learning, understanding their level of responsibility and the contribution necessary to minimize global warming and offset their carbon footprint. Previously referred to as the Jetwing Eternal Earth Project, the initiative won the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) Gold Award for Corporate Environmental Programme in 2009.

- The Jetwing Youth Development Project

Sri Lanka faces a massive problem with the unemployment of youth, especially in rural areas. Our country has had previous bitter experience with youth uprisings, as a direct result of unemployment, its accompanying poverty and frustration. Thus the objectives of the Jetwing Youth Development Project were to seek to address these major issues in four ways.

• Primarily, to face – and provide solutions for – the manpower shortage in our hotels and the hospitality industry in general. 
• To involve local communities in tourism, passing on to them some of its benefits. 
• To contribute towards resolving the problem of Sri Lanka’s youth unemployment.
• To help resolve the problem of youth frustration with the providing of gainful employment.

Focused to bridge the gap between the unskilled and the skilled and equip them for employment, the first Jetwing Youth Development Project provided training absolutely free to school leavers from disadvantaged farming families in the Sigiriya area. A six-month training programme in practical, spoken English, using role play in a seriesof real-life situations, with exercises in grammar, general knowledge, Western ideas and ideals, was intended to provide these rural school leavers with a working knowledge which would enable them to express themselves in English as well as understand others. The Project was honoured for its novel approach, winning the PATA Grand Award under Education and Training in 2007.

Through JYDP, Jetwing Hotels has recruited 60 associates from the local communities from three batches. At present, the 5th JYDP is underway at Jetwing Blue, Negombo.

2. Sustainability at Jetwing Hotels: Sustainable measures of practice implemented to ‘green’ Jetwing Hotels ensuring that all hotels attain high standards of environmental custodianship in both front-end and back-end processes. This is done via the introduction of the Green Directory under the supervision of an independent environmental consultant. Monthly internal audits are also carried out by each hotel to monitor and check on performance in a timely manner. The Green Directory is updated every year based on each hotel’s performance and is currently in place for Jetwing Lighthouse, Jetwing Vil Uyana, Jetwing St. Andrew’s and Jetwing Beach. Potential to be developed for Jetwing Blue and Jetwing Sea – Dr. Sriyanie Mithapala (Environmental Consultant) to assess.

Areas of interest:

1. At Jetwing Hotels, hot water requirements are sustainably generated through solar power and biomass boilers (Not in place currently at Jetwing Vil Uyana and Jetwing Ayurveda Pavilions)
2. Jetwing Hotels is replacing hazardous granular chlorine with a salt water chlorinator to disinfect swimming pools. 
3. Jetwing Hotels has drastically reduced the use of plastic bags in the procurement of food supplies. 
4. Waste water generated from each hotel is recycled as used in the gardens 
5. Jetwing Hotels has achieved a 40% saving in energy consumption by using energy efficient LCD / LED TV’s as opposed to plasma and traditional CRT televisions. 
6. The use of plastics has been greatly reduced. Plastic shampoo bottles, plastic laundry bags, plastic straws and cutlery and plastic shopping bags are not in use at Jetwing Hotels. 
7. From 2010 to 2011 Jetwing Hotels has successfully reduced its carbon foot print by 22%.

Jetwing Sea

• Total guest room lighting powered by a solar PV system.
• Total Illumination is achieved through energy saving bulbs (60% – LED and 40% CFL with 0% use of Incandescent).

Jetwing Beach

• Complete computerisation and networking of the Hotel has been established with a goal to making the offices as paper-free as possible.
• Beach clean up programs involving the community and staff participation and extending beyond the boundaries of the Hotel are carried out twice a month.

Jetwing Blue

• Total illumination is achieved through energy saving bulbs (50% – LED and 50% – CFL with 0% use of incandescent).

Jetwing St. Andrew’s

• A wetland was designed and developed to attract birds, butterflies and dragonflies. Currently, over 25 species of birds (including migratory species and four endemics), 12 species of butterflies and four species of dragonflies have been observed visiting the wetland.

Jetwing Lagoon

• 100% of illumination is to be achieved via the use of energy saving LED bulbs.

Jetwing Vil Uyana

• Transportation within the hotel is through electronic buggy carts, which is recharged partly using wind power 
• Heat generated from the condensers of air-conditioning units is re-used to generate hot water for the dwellings.
• Biological processing of solid waste compost is used in vegetable gardens and paddy fields 
• Jetwing Vil Uyana is Sri Lanka’s top spot for watching the elusive Grey Loris. 
• Jetwing Vil Uyana is the first hotel in Sri Lanka to construct a wetland system with lakes and reed beds, from abandoned agricultural land and forest to form a private nature reserve. (Stats: A wetland habitat, comprising water bodies extending over 1.6ha; a growing forest habitat of 1.2ha and 2ha of paddy land have now been created).

Jetwing Lighthouse

• All the hot water and steam required for the laundry is generated through biomass boiler at Jetwing Lighthouse

3. Eco-projects: Initiatives undertaken by Jetwing in the field of conservation and raising awareness on the environment. For example, the Jetwing Research Initiative (JRI) provides the logistics to support the projects undertaken by researchers as we believe this helps the tourism industry to develop partnerships with scientists and conservationists to protect Sri Lanka’s biodiversity. JRI has supported over the years scientific studies on primates of Sri Lanka, Sri Lanka’s dragonflies and the Sri Lankan leopard at the Yala National Park.

4. Humanitarian projects: Consists of all the short-run measures undertaken at each Jetwing hotel to assist the neighbouring communities. Examples include beach cleanups, donations to rural schools and hospitals, for social construction projects, purchasing of equipment, etc.
To us, this country and this world are the only one we have. As such, we protect and nourish her in the ways we can, and we invite you to join us in doing the same. For further information on JEEP, please visit www.eternalearth.net and see how together, we can create a green future.