• Child protection: enforces a strict policy with suppliers about child protection

• Education, orphanage support, female empowerment and entrepreneurship: supports programmes tackling issues for women, children, against poverty and hunger. All properties support local employees’ school programs, orphanages and female led businesses to create economic independence.

• Local farmers, local vendors: employment priority to locals, support of local agriculture in culinary art, purchase of local products both fair trade and free-range

• Health: all properties offer healthy, sustainable, organic, seasonal food for guests and staff as well as providing healthcare for employees and local communities

Indigenous traditions, craftsmanship, rehabilitation of lost traditions: all hotels support local artisans through purchasing and encourage guests to do the same.

Respect and preservation of native environments and ecosystems: initiatives such as tree planting, mangrove and coral protection, sea turtle conservation, clean beach campaigns, and safeguarding open lands

• Waste management: following the principles of refuse, reduce, reuse, and recycle.

• Food waste management promoting composting practices: organic scraps are added to compost in our extensive gardens. After a cycle of around five or six months the compost works as the ultimate soil-enricher, helping us strive for a circular economy.

• Water conservation utilising low-flow equipment: all of Nyne’s basins and showers are equipped with low-flow systems, which result in water conservation. We utilise toilets to dramatically reduce water consumption.

• Supporting Mangroves: Rock Villa and Muse have full-time teams fully engaged in protecting the mangroves in the area, with daily clean-ups by our valued staff and periodic beach clean-ups with the local community.

• Energy efficiency: implementing LED lighting across all properties.

• Eliminated single-use plastic waste: all hotels have already eliminated single-use plastic usage. Nyne banned plastic straws and has only used bamboo and grass versions since. The brand has also carried out a full audit of all plastic on site, and we are free of single use plastics.

Provenance is of paramount importance at Nyne, as many ingredients as possible are sourced from Sri Lanka’s own gamut of farmers and fishermen, with the exception of red meat and Salmon that’s sourced from Australia and Norway respectively. Presently around 60%—70% of all ingredients served at Nyne’s restaurants hail from Sri Lanka: a celebration of local cuisine on every property.

Cookery classes dedicated to the local cuisine are available at selected hotels.

Where possible, purchases are made from small-scale suppliers and bought from source. The hotel’s team of chefs regularly visit these suppliers to maintain a strong relationship and other team members are often invited to join, learning the value of the origin of ingredients - from planting to harvesting.

Traditionally most properties have a private garden or vegetable patch, where the staff grow our own produce. We use our own organic manure from composting. Rock Villa and Mayur have gardens cultivating vegetables; fruit and herbs, including two different types of aubergines, green chillies, capsicum, basil, rosemary and lemongrass are just a few.

We offer à la carte menus, steering away from buffet-style dining as well as careful consideration of food waste. Curated menus that suit our guests’ dietary preferences even before they arrive give us ample time to make sustainable purchases.

Food production, storage, transport, cooking and waste all result in greenhouse gas emissions and Nyne is proud to be constantly reducing the brand’s ‘foodprint’ in every way possible. Local purchases are made for perishable items depending on the occupancy and meal preference of the guest. We use consolidated transportation to reduce carbon emissions caused during transportation.

One of Nyne’s most charming guest experiences is a visit to a pier and local market (pola). A living portrait of a traditional Bentota way of life, the visit invites guests to learn about fish and vegetables, an important part of local culture.

Throughout the pandemic, the hotel’s community outreach programme provided aid to those living around the hotels.

The architectural style of Nyne hotels is ecologically sensitive in a way that aligns with nature. Buildings have been designed with optimal orientation to maximise sunlight and breeze allowing us to rely less on artificial lighting and cooling systems, reducing the buildings’ carbon footprint.

Solar heating panels heat hotel water, meaning less reliance on power from the national grid. Artificial ponds in the landscaping of the grounds also help enhance favourable conditions for a microclimate and biodiversity.

A few of our hotels produce electricity using solar panels.

All our hotels are seeing an increasing number of guests opting out of the daily changing of linen and towels due to climate consciousness. Nyne encourages guests to reuse towels and linen promoting water conservation and reduced use of chemicals.

More than 50% of our staff are from the local village where our hotels are located.