Learning from Banyan Tree’s 25-Year Journey in Sustainability

A Conversation with Steve Newman, Group Sustainability Director of Banyan Tree Hotels & Resorts

Image via Banyan Tree’s Rooted in Sustainability

“We’re not really talking about the next 25 years – we care more about the next 250 years. If something works on that longer time-frame, then it’s scalable to the present.”
- Steve Newman

Steve Newman is the current Group Sustainability Director of Banyan Tree Hotels & Resorts. Following a PhD in Marine Ecology, he developed over 20 years of experience researching and teaching in academia. Seeing the need for a bridge between the theories and scientific rigor of academia and the practical real-world application of business, Steve transitioned into the private sphere when he began working for Banyan Tree in 2015.

Image via itmustbeNOW

As a follow-up to my earlier conversation with Paul Wilson, I was gifted a book called “Rooted in Sustainability” (available for free in pdf form), which is co-produced by Steve Newman (along with Charlie Everitt) and documents Banyan Tree’s 25-year journey in sustainability and stakeholder-oriented business. This journey explains how: 

• Sustainable Development Goals are baked into Banyan Tree’s governance

• Banyan Tree’s “Stay for Good” concept invites guests to learn about and participate in its initiatives

• Banyan Tree lives the motif that “businesses cannot succeed in societies that fail”

My conversation with Steve and my review of Banyan Tree’s sustainability journey brought me back to a lecture I once attended by Ed Freeman, the man who developed the term “Stakeholder Theory” in 1984. Stakeholder Theory proposes that the primary responsibility of a business is not to maximize shareholder wealth, but to optimize a balance between the needs of various stakeholder groups – customers, employees, the government, the environment, local communities, suppliers, and yes, shareholders. Because this approach focuses on fostering deeper long-term relationships, it is actually more likely to result in also maximizing financial return, at least over the long-run.

Freeman described the stakeholder approach to business with the analogy of music. It requires “harmony”, as he put it – the notes are different, as are the instruments, but they make music together. Like the notes, instruments, and players of an orchestra, stakeholder needs differ, but a sustainable business aligns those differences in a direction cohesive to that organization’s core values and purpose.

Few organizations do that as clearly as Banyan Tree. Here are some excerpts from my conversation with one of its chief strategists of sustainability leadership, Steve Newman.

What are some ideal possible outcomes of Banyan Tree’s recent Greater Good Grants?  What scale of problem does this offering hope to address?

The grants aren’t offering loads of money, but we hope that meaningful partnerships could result. An “ideal” project would obviously be one that’s close to our properties, has a massive impact, and costs nothing … but you’ll always have some trade-offs between those three.

We established these projects to curate partnerships between our business, local grassroots organizations, NGOs or passionately engaged individuals, to create positive impact towards the Sustainable Development Goals.

The partnership creation is important, so we can create shared value. This means business being an active part of society, and partnerships are central to successfully achieving the SDGs. We hope that these partnerships support an expansion of our boundary of influence and effect: whereby we can improve nature and society where we operate. This aligns with the motif that “businesses cannot succeed in societies that fail”.

How is sustainability a part of the guest experience at Banyan Tree’s resorts or communicated in its value proposition? Does communication differ at a golf course vs a resort, and if so, how?

We look to engage our guests in sustainability by creating a sense of place that connects with the local culture and nature. We operate sustainably (conserving resources, respecting human rights, and protecting the environment), and look to engage guests as responsible travelers passively or actively to create a “Stay for Good” whereby guests have opportunities to learn, engage and give back to the destination.

More broadly, from an ecological perspective, sustainability is about connectivity. The approach of all “henokiens” [organizations that last two or more centuries] is to take a “stakeholder” vs stockholder approach to business – one that takes into account the needs of everyone affected in and around the organization. The term “CSR” [Corporate Social Responsibility] is very policy-driven and reactive, but a holistic stakeholder approach is about making purpose your compass.

To answer your last question, that holistic approach is a massive missed opportunity for golf, which utilizes a lot of green space, and could promote preservation rather than degradation. Luxury hospitality, like golf, is tiny in comparison to other industries and the whole of the economy, but if luxury and golf don’t take sustainability seriously, then other sectors probably won’t. 

With golf, you might say it’s mostly about the use of the land, but the platform of fun and influence is also critically important for communicating efforts.

How does Banyan Tree manage some of the tension inherent in communicating its positive impacts (i.e., educating guests and other stakeholders about positive outcomes without any appearance of greenwashing/overselling)?

The approach you take to sustainability is as important as anything. It can’t be top-down. That said, we’re fortunate to have really engaged owners [KP and Claire] who stay true to their vision. KP says that sustainability starts with the company’s values. We make the well-being of our people our first priority.

Success in sustainability is about translating the complex into the simple. We have to move even beyond communication to collaboration. If you can furthermore embed sustainability outcomes into performance metrics then you create accountability.

With that in mind, one of the biggest lessons for me has been that you have to be a cheerleader for everything. It’s important to celebrate small wins. We have also built trust in our efforts by consistent and sustained effort: 25 years founded on sustainable development. If anything, we have been guilty at times of not telling people enough about what we do. However, it is important to share and motivate collective learning. Our 25th anniversary book, Rooted in Sustainability, was inspired by this fact: 

We are able to speak from a position of experience rather than wishful optimism.

How does (or how might) Banyan Tree engage guests to participate in community and sustainability initiatives? How does sustainability make the product itself better?

As I’ve said, tourism is intrinsically interconnected with natural and cultural heritage. Why else would you travel halfway around the world? We offer both passive and active ways to engage, including clean up events, reef restoration projects, tree plantings, and more.

We have multiple labs in the Maldives and Indonesia from which we’re aiming to research ecological challenges and enhance the environment.

Moreover, the Green Imperative Fund encourages an opt-out donation of $2 per night that funds our sustainability work.

What will the next 25 years of Banyan Tree’s journey look like? What “loops” might Banyan look to close, and do you think “regenerative travel” is a possible next step for Banyan?

We’re not really talking about the next 25 years – we care more about the next 250 years. If something works on that longer time-frame, then it’s scalable to the present.

That said, the next 25 years brings us close to 2050, which is an important milestone within the Paris Agreement [for limiting warming to 2 degrees Celsius]. A refreshed materiality assessment will help us develop a new roadmap. The approach can’t be just about improving efficiency but has to help develop more of a circular economy.

One current example is our ORI9IN Farm in Thailand. We evaluate what we use, how we use it, and where it comes from. The goals are shortening the supply chain, reducing impacts, and creating resilience to shocks.

To your last question, “Regenerative” travel is a bit of a buzzword but the concept is certainly one that we embrace by encouraging guests to participate in preserving natural and cultural heritage.

One of the biggest things we’ve learned recently is that we have to come out of the pandemic with fresh perspective. It shows us how we can either choose to adapt or have adaptation imposed upon us. COVID shows how we can build back better, but also provides the impetus to change at a greater rate.

Claire has said that “we’re not just on a journey of re-covery, but dis-covery”.