Dake Rechsand, a Dubai-based company offering sustainable solutions in water conservation and desert farming, has showcased solutions that could help shape the future of UAE’s hospitality industry, as the due date for compliance with Dubai Tourism’s Sustainability Board guidelines approaches. The company has pitched in with products and solutions that it believes address a key component of sustainability and carbon emissions in the hospitality industry: water use.
“The per capita water use in the UAE is already three times higher than the global average,” said Chandra Dake, CEO and Founder of Dake Rechsand. “The hospitality industry accounts for disproportionately high water usage – from laundering to landscaping. Additionally, since much of the UAE’s water supply is produced through desalination, involving unsustainable use of fossil fuels, it has embodied carbon at every stage, from procurement, to transportation, to end use,” he added.
The Middle East has had a limited choice of water sources. Scarce groundwater reserves, with high salinity and limited re-use, have compounded local water security issues and the arid climate makes landscaping irrigation-intensive.
However, this can change, according to Dake Rechsand. Taking the 3Rs approach: ‘Reduce, Recycle, and Reuse’, hotels in the Middle East can take a smart and proactive approach to sustainability, while enhancing the property, and the guest experience they offer. A water-wise hospitality property can:
- Reduce: Hotels can reduce water usage, by using innovative techniques and products, which help plants thrive despite less volume, or lower frequency, of irrigation.
- Recycle: Solutions that recycle water that has been used to wash paving, and other surfaces in the property, can make a hotel dramatically more efficient in water use, without altering the guest experience.
- Reuse: Following on from the principle of recycling water, the reclaimed water can be used for landscaping and watering plants, after it has been filtered.
Greywater reuse is an increasingly popular strategy, being adopted by hospitality and residential properties around the world. Several approaches, including using physical and chemical filteration, and/or constructed wetland areas, are being implemented to make bath and laundry water suitable for reuse in keeping the property’s landscaping lush and green.
Dake Rechsand’s ‘breathable sand’ technology offers a simple, decentralised, water harvesting and storage solution, which also empowers water-wise landscaping. This can help hoteliers drastically reduce the volume of water used for landscaping, while also allowing them to develop their own water reserves, to become partly or fully self-sustainable.
Planting more trees on their expansive grounds can enhance the ambience and beauty of a hospitality property in a way that nothing else can.
“Water scarcity presents a major hindrance to sustainability in the UAE. So, it’s strategically crucial for the hospitality industry to evolve in how it procures water and uses it. Bearing that in mind, we have curated our solutions to not only address embodied carbon footprint, but also induce circularity, reusability and cost-effectiveness in the hospitality industry’s water infrastructure,” Chandra concluded.