Operationalising Regeneration: Hotels as Living Systems Agents?

Regeneration in hospitality requires more than efficiency improvements; it demands a shift from extractive models toward reciprocal relationships with place. Through the VIRTU Resort & Residences model, developed in partnership with the World Indigenous Business Network (WIBN), hotels are conceived as living systems participants rather than resource consumers.

Operationally, this means integrating Indigenous governance, bioregional food systems, renewable energy, water restoration, non-toxic material cycles, and biodiversity stewardship into daily hotel functions. Performance is measured not only by reduced impact, but by net-positive outcomes: improved soil health, restored habitats, strengthened local economies, and long-term community well-being.

Indigenous partnership is foundational, not symbolic. Governance structures include local and First Nations leadership, ensuring development aligns with cultural values, intergenerational stewardship, and land-based knowledge systems. This reframes hospitality success beyond occupancy and revenue toward ecological resilience and community vitality.

In this model, hotels become platforms that support cultural revitalization, education, and regenerative land practices. Regeneration is not an extension of sustainability but a transformation of purpose, where the presence of hospitality contributes to the long-term health of ecosystems and communities alike.

At Sunlife, regeneration is not framed as an extension of sustainability but as a shift in how value is created. As stated in our 2025 Sustainability Report, hospitality has the power to regenerate, not just to delight… it is the strategy that shapes every decision, every investment, and every guest experience.

In 2020, we repositioned sustainability as the core of our brand and long-term value model. Operationally, this shift is measurable: 20% reduction in Scope 1 emissions, 1.6% reduction in combined Scope 1 & 2 emissions, 11.4% reduction in water per guest night, 75% local sourcing, and a 71% waste diversion rate. Over 10,000 guests have engaged in marine and biodiversity conservation initiatives, and 550,000 pollinators are now supported through our biodiversity programmes.

Aligned with ISSB S2 climate frameworks, ESG is embedded into governance, capital allocation, and performance systems.

We consider practices regenerative when they strengthen ecosystem resilience and local supply networks, not merely reduce impact. If community agency and place health were fully centred, growth would operate within ecological capacity, and success would be measured as much by ecosystem vitality as by occupancy.

Regeneration must become operating logic and not aspiration.

A case study I recently prepared can serve as a possible blueprint for hotels seeking to integrate circularity, community partnership, and ecological restoration into their core business model.

Garden Hotels & Resorts transformed its operations in Mallorca through a circular partnership with local farmers. Instead of relying on global supply chains, the hotel group builds long‑term relationships with organic farmers while turning its own food and garden waste into a regenerative resource. This regenerative model does more than reduce waste; it actively restores ecosystems, strengthens local food systems, and reduces carbon emissions. In 2024 alone, Garden Hotels produced 292 tons of compost and avoided over 200 tons of CO₂‑equivalent emissions, demonstrating measurable climate benefits. The initiative supports local farmers who previously struggled to increase organic production and reduces dependence on external waste‑management systems, which is especially vital on islands with limited land and fragile ecosystems. By anchoring value locally, reducing transport emissions, and regenerating soil health, the project goes beyond sustainability and converges towards regeneration.

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I find the increasing focus on regeneration in hospitality and tourism both encouraging and worrisome. Encouraging, as it promises a mandatory shift in our approach, but worrisome, as it could become just another buzzword, merely replacing sustainability or CSR. Therefore, lets go back to where the term was used early on: regenerative agriculture.

Regenerative agriculture has suffered from vague or competing definitions threatening its credibility (Congreves, 2025), so the parallel with regenerative hospitality appears obvious. Congreves (2025) proposed regenerative agriculture to be defined as "an ecological approach and ethic for our agricultural system that involves reciprocity with the land, to support ecosystem processes with the goal of nurturing the environment" (p. 4). I believe hospitality and tourism can benefit significantly from this definition. First, regenerative hospitality must be an ethic rather than a mere business practice. Second, reciprocity with all stakeholders - human and non-human – must be integrated. Third, it must nurture the surrounding natural environment and business stakeholders to help them flourish.

Until we define regenerative hospitality in an operational manner that prevents abuse, I propose we draw guidance from regenerative agriculture.

Reference: 

Congreves, K. A. (2025). Regenerative agriculture—a definition and philosophy. Npj Sustainable Agriculture, 3(1), 1–5.

Regeneration in hospitality doesn't begin with expensive technology or grand impact statements. It starts with something simpler: investing in the wellbeing of frontline staff. Yoga, breathwork, physiotherapy or beach runs (for coastal teams) are low-cost practices that improve morale, motivation and performance. When staff regenerate themselves, the operation strengthens as staff become more mindful of their actions. 

From there, regeneration expands. Some Sri Lankan boutique hotels integrate staff families into their supply chains, sourcing homegrown fruits, vegetables and eggs through fair procurement models. Others co-create guest experiences with local communities — homestays, craft workshops and Ayurvedic treatments where proceeds directly benefit host communities. Properties like Halcyon Mawella and AMBA Estate go further by supporting community enterprises or offering employee shareholding, aligning effort with ownership and long-term stewardship.

Operational systems can also close loops: composting food waste into kitchen gardens, producing biogas for cooking (at Camp Coconut, Sri Lanka), repurposing discarded linen into useful products, or replacing chemicals with nature-based pool filtration systems such as at SAMA Kosgoda. Partnerships with universities and suppliers can further embed biodiversity restoration and regenerative agriculture into operations. 

Regeneration is about intention, not scale: using existing resources, including waste, to create shared ecological, social and commercial value.

Enhancing Social-Ecological Systems: Fogo Island

Regenerative hospitality can help re-conceptualise the relationship between hotels and place, moving beyond sustainability toward the active restoration, preservation and enhancement of social‑ecological systems (Hahn and Tampe, 2021). A case from the study by Slawinski et al. (2021), The Fogo Island Inn, part of a social enterprise, in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, shows concrete context-specific regenerative practices. These practices provide an instructive case of how a hotel operation can enhance rather than diminish local resilience.

Regenerative practices

The careful siting of the building to preserve an ancient footpath reflects the safeguarding of cultural heritage. Ecological sensitivity is further demonstrated by temporarily removing and later reintroducing native mosses, grasses, and plants, thereby reducing landscape disruption. Material choices also reinforce place-based identity by using natural, locally sourced wood and stone, which also minimises transportation impacts. The use of a low-impact, non-destructive foundation reduced concrete needs for the construction. Additionally, locally crafted furniture and textiles—produced by community artisans using regionally sourced materials—underscore how regenerative practice can support local livelihoods while maintaining a low carbon footprint.

What is shown in these practices is how hotel operations can support the regeneration of social-ecological systems.

A prime example of regenerative hospitality is sometimes found in remote areas. The case I would like to briefly describe is the Black Sheep Inn, an inn in the Ecuadorian Andes that practices permaculture.

Permaculture is a philosophy of working with nature, not against it. They actively contribute to reforestation. The inn can accommodate up to 35 guests, has greywater recycling systems, dry composting toilets, and practices recycling glass, metal, paper, and plastic. Guests are served organic vegetarian food from the local garden and a greenhouse. The inn uses traditionally designed buildings made of straw and adobe, both traditional and local materials.

Measuring such regenerative practices is not easily measured in tangible terms, but rather in social and economic terms. If the inn is seen by local communities as an economically and socio-culturally beneficial business, in addition to having been in existence since the mid-1990s, then no more tangible evidence of its regenerative focus is needed.

The Cart Before the Horse

Félix Guattari warned that "the ecological disruptions of the environment are only the visible part of a deeper and more significant ill, relating to the ways of living and being in society on this planet." ^[1]

This is where I want to begin — not with practices, but with that deeper ill.

The three questions posed here are important. But answering them directly risks what Donna Haraway would call acting as if we do act alone - as if individual hotels, through better operations, can exit the assemblage of assumptions, power relations, and growth logics that created the problem in the first place^[2].

So before listing examples or metrics, I would invite a prior question: what would we need to let go of in our mental models, our sense of ownership, our relationship to growth before any practice could genuinely be called regenerative?

The three questions deserve honest answers. But reaching for tools before doing the harder work of examining our assumptions risks repeating the very pattern regeneration is supposed to break.

These questions — and possible answers — are explored in depth in the forthcoming Routledge Handbook of Regenerative Tourism and Hospitality (Legrand, Burns & Day, Eds., 2026), where researchers, practitioners, and community voices engage precisely this harder work.

^{[1] Guattari, F. (1989). Les trois écologies. Éditions Galilée, p.74 (Available in English here: https://monoskop.org/images/4/44/Guattari_Felix_The_Three_Ecologies.pdf)}

^{[2] Haraway, D. (2015). Anthropocene, Capitalocene, Plantationocene, Chthulucene: Making Kin. Environmental Humanities, 6(1): 159–165. https://doi.org/10.1215/22011919-3615934}