At VOMO they know the importance of protecting not only the environment immediately around us, but also for the better of the entire planet in order to leave a healthy ecosystem for generations to come. They work hard to make sure our footprint on earth is as low as possible, through water, chemical, and waste management, as well as making conscious purchasing decisions that benefit their environmental goals. With their environmental plan constantly updating and improving, they are still searching for ways to enhance what they are already doing, as well as looking into further projects that will lessen our carbon footprint and help protect and re-build their local ecosystem.
VOMO works with the Mamanuca Environment Society to implement best practices for the nurture, care and regeneration of their pristine location. Staff are provided with education and they also work with local villages to ensure they are educated on the care of their local environment. VOMO supports the local villages through purchase of produce, taking guests for visitations and for employing mostly local staff as their hospitality superstars.
VOMO’s kitchen gardens are all organically managed and designed around building soil health, eliminating chemical damage to their reef, and helping to reduce their need for transporting fresh produce. They have three areas in production including their greenhouse, which grows their vegetables and their tropical fruit orchard. An expansion plan is in development to further enhance this initiative for next generations. With the production of the on-site gardens, they have significantly reduced the amount of imported fresh produce as well as offsetting a portion of the transport involved with sourcing products from all over Fiji.
VOMO is in a remote location and runs power off generators.
Their on-site water bottling plant is used to cater all drinkable water on the island, saving over 90,000 glass bottles per year. This state-of-the-art system not only cleans the water to near purity, it also enriches the water with beneficial minerals. Because there are no natural rivers or wells on the Island, they use desalination as the source of all water. This system takes seawater from the ocean, removes the salt, then cleans and purifies it through a series of micro-filters and UV treatment. For drinking water, they take this process even further by running it through their bottling plant which is equipped with further micro-filters and a reverse osmosis purifier that removes 98% of particles that are not H2O. The purified water is then passed through a series of mineralizing filters that adds back the beneficial minerals we need in our diet that are normally found in fresh water. An additional UV treatment is used before the water is bottled in sealed reusable glass bottles for drinking use.
They use an aerobic system which naturally treats the water without chemicals. The water runs through a sediment chamber, then into an aerobic treatment system that pumps oxygen into the water. This neutralizes harmful pollutants and contaminants through aeration. The purified water is then passed through ultra violet treatment before being distributed to a holding tank. By using this treatment system, they can confidently use the purified and treated water to feed their gardens with chemical free, healthy, nutrient rich water. And as for composting solutions, this chlorine-free system also eliminates any possibility of harsh chemicals leaching into the surrounding reef.
