Colombo Court Blog Sustainability
Why Good Market approved us, and what they check
Good Market only lists businesses that are good for the planet, good for the country and good for you. Here is what they looked at before adding a hotel.
Good Market is a Sri Lankan community of businesses that have been checked against one simple test: good for the planet, good for the country and good for you. It began as a Saturday market in Colombo and grew into a curated network, and its approval is not automatic. When Colombo Court was added as a Good Market Travel vendor, it followed a review of how the hotel was built and how it runs. Here is what they looked at.
The building
Most of the hotel is made from what was already on the site. Five old office buildings were kept rather than demolished, and the bricks from their boundary walls became the floors of the lobby and the library. Trees that were already growing here, some of them close to a century old, were built around rather than cut down. Open private courtyards let air move through the public areas, so they need no air-conditioning at all.
The art follows the same rule. The sculptures through the hotel are made from scrap metal, the bedside lamps from bicycle parts, and the fountain in the private courtyard was once a cement mixer.
The running of it
The everyday habits matter more than the architecture. Drinking water is filtered and bottled in glass on site, which removes thousands of plastic bottles a year. Water heating is solar, lighting is LED, the air-conditioning in the rooms is inverter-type, and rainwater is collected for the garden. Waste is separated so that less of it leaves as landfill.
And every year the hotel’s carbon footprint is measured by the Carbon Consulting Company and offset with verified carbon credits, which is what makes Colombo Court South Asia’s first CarbonNeutral® city hotel.
Why it matters
Good Market brings together two groups of people: those who care how a business behaves, and businesses that behave well. Being listed puts us in front of the first group and holds us to the standard of the second. If you are choosing where to stay in Colombo on those terms, here is what to look for, and here is where to book.
