Anurak Community Lodge won sustainability award

Monday, September 28, 2020

YAANA Ventures, the operator of Anurak Community Lodge at Khao Sok National Park in southern Thailand, has been awarded the 2020 Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) Grand Award in the Sustainability category.

The winners were announced during the online PATA Gold Awards presentation as part of Virtual PATA Travel Mart 2020, taking place September 23-27.

Twenty-three PATA Gold Awards were announced 24 September at the virtual awards ceremony. Three ‘best of the best’ Grand awards were given: one each for marketing, human capital development, and sustainability.

The climate change/sustainability category was judged on measures that create a low-carbon, sustainable future for the travel industry and engage local communities. Since opening in 2016, Anurak’s operation has been guided by an ethos of reduce, reuse and recycle. Anurak Community Lodge achieved Travelife Gold certification in 2019.

Guests and staff today are encouraged to save energy and water. Single-use plastic, Styrofoam and cardboard plates are banned. Plastic straws have been replaced with bamboo and metal ones. An onsite recycling station has been set up, along with a composting area. A grey water treatment filter system for laundry wastewater is in place. Water from that system is being used on the Rainforest Rising project, Anurak’s project to  return two rai (3,226 sqm; 0.8 acres) of former palm oil plantation beside the lodge to indigenous lowland evergreen forest by 2023.

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