“We built a 100% eco resort”

A small resort in Bangalore, India, took up the gauntlet to create a near-perfect, eco-friendly outfit.

At the recent Wild Asia 2007 Responsible Tourism Awards & Seminar, Indian resort operator C. B. Ramkumar gave a talk on responsible tourism and social change. He said matter of factly: “We built a 100% eco resort.”

Call it a marketing ploy or a bold claim, but now Ramkumar had everyone sit up and listen.

This genial yet unassuming 44-year-old owns and runs a 24-room resort in a village 40km from Bangalore City in southern India. Called Our Native Village, the resort started operating in September 2006.

Sitting on 4.8 hectares of land, the resort was constructed of bricks made with mud from the building site. The layout of the building allows natural light to filter through, and strategically placed windows create airy and cool spaces, hence the resort did away with air-conditioning.

The Village generates 80% of its electricity through solar panels, a windmill and biogas plant. Sixty percent of its water is harvested from rain and stored in underground tanks or tapped from bore wells. With its zero-waste policy, all food and animal wastes are converted into methane gas and electricity at the biogas plant. Slurry from the biogas plant is used as fertiliser for the resort’s organic farm. Reed waterbeds recycle grey water from sinks and showers for gardening. “Black” water from the toilets is fed into leach pits and later used as manure.

“All my water is used at least twice, if not three times,” says Ramkumar.

“We use soap nut powder and ash for cleaning dishes and the water can be used for watering plants.”

Specially handmade for the resort, the soaps and shampoos are biodegradable. Pretty clay bottles, water jugs and cups are sourced from local potters. Plastics go for recycling in Bangalore where they are made into pellets for paving roads.

A solar water heater and a traditional Gujarat boiler provide hot showers for guests. The resort’s organic farm supplies fresh, chemical-free veggies for guest meals and herb oil extracts for the spa. Guests can also splash about in the chlorine-free swimming pool.

“We use aquatic plants to clean and oxygenate the fully natural pool – a first in India and a rare one in a tropical climate,” says Ramkumar...

Guests get to pick from a smorgasbord of activities. The Village boasts the first resort in the world to issue a bullock cart-driving licence. Or indulge in traditional village games like gilli-danda (similar to cricket), top spinning and kite-flying. Guests can learn the art of rangoli (floor painting with intricate designs) or take short excursions to the Nrityagam dance school or to a 10th century monolithic temple...

innovative operator also revives traditional Indian arts. Murals painted by rural artists adorn the guestrooms and replicas of Hero stones dot the resort landscapes. Unique to Karnataka, the hero stones, or veerakallu, are stone engravings and sculptures of heroic kings and knights of ancient times....