The Meritage Collection Rolls Out New Sustainability Programs and Partnerships

The Meritage Collection has rolled out a sustainability program that has been two years in the making across its six upscale hotel properties in California, Hawaii and Texas. With resorts located in Texas’ Hill Country to the shores of Kauai, the collection is committed to preserving their naturally beautiful environments with sustainability initiatives and brand partnerships to ensure the hotels are leaving a positive impact on the planet. 

Eco-friendly initiatives were already in place at each property, ranging from partnerships and packages to support organizations such as Save Our Shores, Surfrider Foundation, One Tree Planted and more, but this new development has taken sustainability collection-wide, drastically expanding the positive footprint of the hotels. 

“Sustainable living is woven into the ethos of our brand and I couldn’t be more proud to introduce these new programs and partnerships,” said Kenzie Vath, Director of Wellness and Sustainability for Pacific Hospitality Group. “During a time when sustainability fell to the wayside for many in the industry, The Meritage Collection chose to bring it to the forefront by investing, researching and implementing strategies that ensure our hotels’ commitment to green practices.”

New collection-wide programs are focused on reducing waste in the hotels and building strategic partnerships with businesses that align with and support the sustainability goals. Chief among them include the implementation of bulk in-room amenities (shampoo, conditioner, body wash, lotion and hand sanitizer) to remove individual plastic bottles, recycling and composting, swapping out complimentary in-room plastic water bottles for aluminum cans by San Benedetto, technological advances to remove paper receipts and more. 

The Meritage Collection’s retail spaces and products, including Blend café and resort spas are also a major component of the new sustainable developments. Currently, 40% of all retail products being sold at Blend Cafe are sustainable, with a goal of having 90% sustainable products by 2025. Sustainable retail partners include:

• Ecowear, an L'Space swimwear line made from recycled plastic

• Corkcicle, which are reusable canteens that use a no-plastic shipping filler

• 4Ocean bracelets made from 100% post-consumer recycled plastic. Every purchase of a 4ocean product pulls one pound of plastic from the ocean.

• Paddywax Candles, which are soy-based candles sourced from US farms, offering a cleaner burn and vessels that can be repurposed as a pot or cup 

• Babor, which is a European skincare company that uses sustainable packaging, clean ingredients, carbon neutral facilities, and more.

With regards to the back-of-house operations, The Meritage Collection also partners with Avendra purchasing, working with its sustainability arm to ensure conscious and local purchasing, as well as Element packaging, which provides biodegradable packaging for to-go items available at Blend. Currently, 70% of the to-go packages at the properties are made of recycled materials.

In addition to these new partnerships and initiatives, The Meritage Collection has a variety of future plans to continue keeping sustainability at the forefront for each property. To continue building upon existing recycling and composting programs, The Meritage Collection is working with a third-party company that evaluates existing recycling initiatives and provides a road map of how to improve the processes. In order to reach their waste goal. The Meritage Collection is also making a conscious effort to replace existing vendors and/or source new vendors who follow eco-friendly practices to reach their 90% sustainable retail products by 2025. A few of The Meritage Collection’s properties currently offer EV charging stations, but to step it up, they are looking to roll out super charge stations at the remainder of their properties on the mainland and additional properties in their Legacy collection.

On the property level, The Meritage Resort in Napa recently built a chicken coop in the vineyards used to source a portion of the property’s eggs for the restaurants. There are future plans to expand the coop to produce more eggs and to build an accompanying garden to grow produce. Additionally, the property is looking to incorporate more biodynamic wines for guests. 

Additional sustainability information is available at meritagecollection.com/sustainability-program