La Sultana Oualidia

Eco-building:
Made from local stones, La Sultana Oualidia was carefully built in order to blend in with its natural surroundings and minimize its visual impact on the environment. This is the visible part of this eco-friendly building; the main aspect is that it recycles 100% of the water used.

Beach Clean Up:

Location: Lagoon & Atlantic Ocean coastline, Oualidia Morocco
What is the environmental assessment?
Plastic pollution is a growing threat for birds and marine species of the natural reserve.
How does La Sultana helps?
Every day they clean-up the beach near La Sultana Oualidia and every Thursday with the help of the local boatmen and local community
they help bring any litter to the shore. Twice a year, every member of the La Sultana Oualidia team takes part in a ‘Lagoon Clean Up Day’ in order to have a more significant impact on reducing the litter in the lagoon.
To help raise awareness of the lagoon’s important ecosystem, La Sultana Oualidia hosts its ‘Lagoon Clean Up Day’ on World Wetland Day, which celebrates the Convention on Wetlands date of inauguration – 2 February 1971.
Thanks to all daily guests’ excursions in the nature reserve La Sultana’s Team closely monitors the health of the ecosystem and never leave without a bag to pick up any discarded rubbish we encounter during the excursion.
How can you participate?
The team invites volunteers to partake and will be delighted to provide a bag for them to put any discarded rubbish inside. Once finished,
the bag can be returned to La Sultana Oualidia’s concierge who will ensure it is recycled or disposed of appropriately. Volunteers are then
invited to enjoy a cup of Moroccan Mint tea as a thank-you for helping to keep Oualidia clean.

Save the Birds of the World in Oualidia
Location: Lagoon & Salt marsh, Oualidia Morocco
What is the environmental assessment?
Oualidia’s lagoon is an exceptional site of ecological importance for bird conservation that extends over 12 km. Protected by the RAMSAR Convention on Wetlands of International Importance, the lagoon is a stopover haven for most water bird species that migrate the east-Atlantic route between Spain and sub-Saharan Africa in Spring and Autumn. Rare bird species including pink flamingos, grey herons, great cormorants, storks and spatulas visit the lagoon during these seasons.
How do we help?
In addition to the regular Beach Clean-up actions, La Sultana’s “Bird Safari” excursion is specifically designed to raise awareness among their valued guests and staff to show the value of the nature reserve’s species and invite everyone to protect them.
The Bird Infirmary is where we take care of any injured birds we may see with the help of a local vet.
How can you participate?
La Sultana’s team will be pleased to introduce you to the different bird species and the ecosystem of the lagoon during a Bird Watching Safari.

Eco-Social:
Since the inception of the company more than 15 years ago, La Sultana’s team has been dedicated to a level of social and environmental responsibility that begins with their employees.
Across La Sultana Marrakech & La Sultana Oualidia, La Sultana employs over two hundred people from local communities and offer add-on health, security and retirement schemes, which contribute to a low turnover rate and to retaining talent. They provide continued in-house staff training and education with regard to the environment which benefit their daily contribution to the quality of service and attention to detail at the hotels.

Empowering women:
Overall 40% of the management at La Sultana Hotels is made up of women and the team counts a total of 37% of their employees as women. As a company they make sure to provide equal opportunity for everyone.

La Sultana’s Communities:
Each Stay at La Sultana Marrakesh & La Sultana Oualidia drives positive change for natural and cultural conservation in Morocco through their commitments to select local charities. As a company they provide regular financial contributions and promote the actions of national charities, Les Enfants de Dar Bouidar, to their guests and business partners.
From 2022, they pledge to allocate 50% of their carbon emissions costs to earth-friendly projects and charities. Their financial contribution fosters activities that have positive impacts for Moroccan people and communities.
Our Actions:
Each stay at La Sultana Marrakesh & La Sultana Oualidia drives positive change for natural and cultural conservation in Morocco through company actions and contribution to select local charities.
Dar Bouidar : Orphan project
Location : Marrakesh, Atlas Mountains
What is it?
The Charity “Les Enfants de Dar Bouidar” created by Hansjörg Huber supports over 100 abandoned children to provide them with a new home, health check-up and an education.
www.atlas-kinder.org/
How does La Sultana helps?
As a company they provide a maintenance & financial contributions and also the team of La Sultana Marrakech gives some of its time to set up enjoyable picnic lunches with the children.
How can you participate?
A gift box is displayed at the Front Desk and donations are given to the charity on your behalf.

La Sultana values their natural & cultural heritage which provides a strong sense of place to the guest experience at La Sultana Marrakech & La Sultana Oualidia.

Terroir Cuisine:
La Sultana’s Terroir Cuisine philosophy is the belief that the flavors and ingredients are direct results of the climate, geography, and farming practices native to
Morocco, and thus express a sense of place. Honoring this philosophy, local and seasonal ingredients are sourced from a small network of Slow Food producers, including saffron from Taliouine, salt from Zerradoun, cumin from Alnif and Argan oil from Tensift-El Haouz, whilst fish and meat options are also carefully
sourced from local-ethical producers.
To bring the best quality to guests, the team handpicks the best local suppliers in the field and select organic products whenever possible to encourage sustainable
agricultural practices. They have achieved a breakfast selection at least 50% “organic” (coffee included)

Locally sourced, made in Morocco:
Morocco is La Sultana’s Marrakech home and the hotel’s team constantly wants to make sure that their restaurants serve only local produce, the hotel boutiques stock products from local artisans and their Spas use locally made products, to be true to their values and provide a strong sense of place for the guests. La Sultana’s position on responsible purchasing practices is to ban imported goods (except cosmetics such as Clarins & Darphin) and to commit to using re-usable, compostable, or environmentally friendly products throughout La Sultana’s properties.
In order to promote Moroccan creativity & design, in the hotel boutiques they display only local and hand-made goods. they also have a display of handmade items supplied by their charities: all the proceeds go towards supporting their actions.

Organic Garden:
To offer the best flavor in every dish and to reduce the hotel’s carbon footprint, La Sultana produces their own organic vegetables in a communal garden in Marrakesh and on their land at La Sultana Oualidia. Their approach is to respect the natural
environment with chemical-free, nettle fertilizer and some help from their happy hens to grow delicious, organic vegetables. Then they harvest their seeds to continue to benefit from the land sustainably. Thanks to La Sultana’s vegetable patch they naturally offer more plant-based dish options and increased the vegetarian and vegan selections
to offer a more sustainable cuisine.

Energy-saving

For the implementation of energy reduction practices, La Sultana Marrakesh has obtained environmental certification from Green Key every year since 2016. Adopting energy saving practices in their daily activities include:

• Upgrading 80% of the lighting system to LED technology

• Bedroom key with automatic light switch-off

• Adequate partial light-cut during night time

• Bathroom taps and shower heads with water aerator

• Optional daily towel & bed sheets replacement

• Water reduction system on toilet flush

• Drop by drop garden irrigation system

• Utilization of ecological washing powder for laundry

• Permanent surveillance of water pipes to avoid water leakage

• Setting up separate water meters per department: hotel, Spa, kitchen, laundry,
swimming pool and restaurant, to review actual consumption

• Chemical-free swimming pools and jacuzzi cleaning system (ionization & UV)

Water conscious
La Sultana Oualidia is proud to be 100% sustainable in its use of water.

A technical infrastructure runs below ground consisting of miles of pipework. Grey water (shower and kitchen) is degreased, oxygenated, homogenized, UV sterilized and filtered. This provides 40 cubic meters of water a day to irrigate the garden.
Sewage water is recycled along underground conduits which use vegetation to break down bacteria. This age-old system, updated for modern needs, gives the garden nutrients to help it to flourish. The final part of the recycling process is evaporation, which takes place through the leaves of the plants. 200 liters of water per day can be evaporated by a single mature eucalyptus tree.
It is thanks to this technical infrastructure that guests can enjoy five-star comfort with minimum strain on resources.

Water table production by the end of the year 2022
La Sultana Marrakesh is located away from roads and so access is a challenge. It is impossible to bring enough glass bottles of water to cover 100% of our water consumption. Morocco is also a country where it is unadvisable to offer guests tap water. The project is to develop the
hotels to accommodate its own bottling unit for still and sparkling drinking water (in glass bottles). By establishing on-site filtration and bottling facilities, each property eliminates the transportation impacts and use of plastic water bottles. This project has been delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic as it was originally scheduled to be implemented by the end of 2020. With all borders closed and lock downs, they feel it is wiser to push this project back by one year to 2022.

Waste management (Plastic Free 2022)

In each property, waste is recorded, sorted and recycled (compost, oil, glass, paper, batteries, plastic).
Adopting best waste practices in the daily activities include:
• Supply of 100% recycled paper
• Printing reduction measures
• Eco label toilet paper
• Utilization of non-toxic & biodegradable cleaning products certified “Eco label”
• Recycling of oils with professional company Kilimandjaro ENVIRONNEMENT
• Battery disposal containers
• Recycling of ink cartridges
• Providing bakery waste to a local farm in exchange for natural fertilizer
La Sultana’s main focus now is to reduce waste, so they replaced plastic straws by stainless steel straws in 2018 and invested to complete by the end of 2021 their new project of producing and bottling their own drinking water (in glass bottles) on site.
Plans are now to eliminate the rest and they encourage guests to join in too. To reach the goal to be completely free of plastic by the year 2022.
In order to promote their actions and engage with their guests about waste impact down the line, they are in the process of creating a “Waste Management Center” by 2022 to handle recycling & compost, aiming to have 95% of their waste recycled.