Ecology and sustainability

Sustainability and "ecological" behaviour are very important to us. Not only because it is "in", so to speak, but because we have seen and experienced on our worldwide travels what it means to neglect the topic "balance between man and nature". And above all because we have experienced how wonderful it is to be in harmony with nature as much as possible.

Especially in the tourism industry we are very challenged to always keep the aspects of ecology and sustainability in mind. Meeting the demands of customers in the best possible ecological way is often a tightrope walk between polarizing interests.

This starts shortly after the vision when it comes to finding the right place for the project and turning the project (the vision) into reality. We have taken 3 years to find the suitable place for the realization of our vision. Today, we look back with pride on the implementation of our vision and find that we have achieved our own objectives, which are listed below. At the same time, we are aware that we can and must learn almost daily in order to live our vision and develop it further. Perfection must not be our goal - but rather progress and development, persistent and critical observation and openness to input from outsiders, guests or employees.

• GARDEN of LIFE is located in a rural area with intact nature - over 500 mature trees grow on the site
• for the realization of our project we did NOT cut down one single tree but built all the buildings and infrastructure around it
• conscious integration on the edge of a village - away from mass tourism
• We have created jobs for the predominantly uneducated population of the village
• The individual existing buildings or ruins were deconstructed and (almost) all materials were reused
• Old furnishings were "upcycled" instead of being replaced by new "standardized" Chinese products
• The majority of the materials used in the construction are made from local raw materials, locally processed or manufactured

•   Avoidance of plastics wherever possible, instead we use locally available, renewable and recyclable raw materials
• Waste separation and recycling
• Laundry with environmentally friendly cleaning agents (e.g. renewable soap nuts)
• Organic farming with perma-culture, without the use of herbicides or pesticides ! Use of natural pesticides from neem, garlic and chili (self made)
• Pool operation with salt water - massively reduced use of additives, thus skin and eye friendly salt content in the water
• LED lights, motion detectors, twilight switches and time switches reduce power consumption
• We measure the power consumption at various points / devices again and again to be able to detect deviations at an early stage
• The water consumption is documented and monitored with calibrated water meters
• Hot water supply for showers in the guest rooms and the kitchen with solar elements
• Furnishings are almost exclusively made of natural materials, mostly "upcycled" and designed to be easy to repair
• Restaurant cuisine works as far as possible with organic products, whenever possible from our own plantation
• organic eggs from free range chickens of local breeds ( no hybrids !)
• Fish and seafood from the local fisherman sustainably caught directly from the nearby seaside
• Sustainable food choice for vegans, vegetarians, flexitarians with variable portions according to customer requirements to keep waste in the kitchen as low as possible
• Organic waste is composted and reused in the garden
• High investment in own drinking water from deep wells, water is completely untreated, only slightly filtered (sand particles). The drinking water is available to all guests at any time from their own taps or bottled (when eating, for example) FREE of charge. This saves us large quantities of plastic bottles that are used elsewhere because the water is not drinkable
• Laundry replacement in the rooms only on request of the customers instead of automatically daily