Club Med Insider

Club Med Ixtapa Pacific: the first steps for Green Globe Certification

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Walking into the Club Med Ixtapa Pacific, I couldn’t help but notice the vast gardens and greenscape. It’s so pretty, oh so pretty and Green. But where does the landscape water come from? My heart did a green backflip when discovering that the resort uses grey water (from the toilets and sinks, then sent to a treatment plant) and returns it to maintain the lush grounds. Speaking of H2O, the resort installed sink and paper towel sensors in the common area bathrooms to reduce waste. It would be great to see sensors in the rooms as well.

To reach Green Globe Bronze status, the resort shifted the RRR (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle) mantra into overdrive. Although they don’t have recycling or compost bins for the guests yet (they plan to place them in common areas in early 2009), they separate and recycle behind-the–scenes. To their credit, they not only recycle bottles and cans but cardboard, batteries, plastics and those nasty dinosaur-era incandescent light bulbs. Indeed, a bulb went off in off in my head. What the heck are they using incandescents for in the first place? They have swapped out some incandescent bulbs for CFL bulbs in the executive offices but have yet to do so in the guest rooms. They told me that changing the bulbs remains a slow process. As the old joke goes, “How many maintenance people does it take to change an incandescent light bulb?”
To obtain further Green Globe certification (Silver, Gold) the resort will eventually need to swap out the incandescents for CFLs. Guests can only encourage them to keep moving in that direction.

For any all-inclusive resort (and indeed family homes as well), the kitchen serves as the social center. What would Club Med be without their kitchen? While often a sore spot in the sustainability plan of many hotels, Executive Chef John Black of Ixtapa Pacific uses various sustainable techniques. The kitchen makes a point of not only composting, but using the homemade compost for the gardens where they grow various produce for the meals—see the kitchen gardens in the first two photographs of this story.

The chef purchases mostly local produce which decreases transport, supports the locals and usually provides superior nutrition and taste. The fish comes frequently from local fisherman. My only recommendation to Executive Chef Black would be to follow the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch which offers information about choosing seafood that's safe, and good for the oceans as well.

Health seems to be one aspect of Green traveling that seems to get lost in the shuffle—for the guests, but also for the workers. We can all breathe easier now that the resort changed from the toxic cleaning supplies in favor of the Green Seal approved Ecolab products. With so many kids running around, the fact that they use no chemical spray for the grounds gets a big green thumbs up.