NEGRIL, Westmoreland — Sandals Negril Beach Resort and Spa announced last week that it has retained its Double Platinum and EarthCheck™ Master Status Certifications classifying it a world-leading green hotel.

Master Status is EarthCheck’s™ highest accolade awarded to organisations demonstrating more than 15 years of commitment to the highest standards of environmental care and social contributions benefiting guests, staff and the local community.

Sandals Negril first attained the rank in 2014, making it the first organisation in the world at that level. Today it shares the achievement with only four other companies in the world, including Sandals Ochi Beach Resort and Spa.

“This great achievement not only exemplifies exceptional performance, but motivates us to further expand our environmental sustainability strategies,” Tavia-Shea Bernard, Sandals Negril’s environment, health and safety manager, reported.

She boasted that since 2003, Sandals Negril has saved 19,668,954 megajoules in energy consumption, enough to power 826 typical four-person households for a year; 94,123,435 litres of potable water, which is equivalent to 38 standard Olympic-sized swimming pools; and has diverted, through composting or other recycling, 1,038,552 litres of waste from the landfill, the equivalent of 31 standard 20-foot shipping containers.

Stewart Moore, CEO and founder of EarthCheck, congratulated the Sandals Negril team for its long-term commitment to sustainability.

“Sandals Negril now sets the global standard for best practice in sustainability in the travel and tourism industry,” he said.

“With this year being the United Nation’s Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development, I am looking forward to witnessing how Sandals Negril will leverage their existing sustainability programmes and successes in the future to generate further business value, improve business performance and foster innovation,” Moore added.

EarthCheck™ was founded on the sustainable tourism principles of the Rio Earth Summit’s Agenda 21 and is the world’s leading provider of environmental management, benchmarking and certification systems for the travel and tourism industry. Its programme addresses key global environmental, cultural, social, and economic concerns, and deals with environmental regeneration and environmental improvement as well as the conservation of existing natural heritage assets.

With its Masters status, Sandals Negril is required to provide leadership and an integrated and inclusive approach to supporting sustainable outcomes. The resort is also mandated to measure, monitor and make ongoing improvements in the key performance areas, including: greenhouse gas emissions, energy efficiency, conservation and management, management of freshwater resources, ecosystem conservation and management, management of social and cultural issues, land use planning and management, air quality protection and noise control, waste water management, solid waste management and storage of environmentally harmful substances.

Sandals Negril is among 15 beachfront properties across the Caribbean that bear the Sandals Resorts name and is part of the family-owned Sandals Resorts International.