Keeping It Green

EVERYDAY SUSTAINABILITY

We work hard to keep our carbon emissions as low as possible. One way we do that is by using solar energy generated at the lodge to heat water for our guest and staff rooms. If it happens to be cloudy, we have energy-saving auxiliary water heaters as a backup. Either way, your showers and will always be warm when you want them to be.

Warning! Flammable! Toxic! With labels like these on many conventional cleaning products, going 100% organic was never a difficult decision for us. The fully biodegradable products we use don’t contain hazardous chemicals so they won’t adversely affect our ecosystems or us. At the lodge, guests can also enjoy sumptuous, 100% Costa Rican and organic spa products and bathroom amenities. We always make a conscious effort to source as many products as we can from as close to home as possible.

Since the very inception of Lapa Rios, we have been attempting to develop a 100% organic vegetable garden at the heart of our rainforest reserve. With mischievous hungry fauna and wild cilantro springing up everywhere, this has been no small task. Over the last few years however, we have made much progress through experimentation.

At Lapa Rios, our food philosophy revolves around fresh, locally-sourced ingredients. But while our garden won’t yield enough to supply the lodge’s kitchens, we do have another goal in mind. Once we find a way to successfully and organically grow fruit, veg and herbs in the middle of the jungle, we can share this knowledge with remote communities in order to encourage their sustainable development.

We think food tastes better when it’s ethical and hasn’t been shipped from faraway lands. At Lapa Rios, we’ll serve you tasty exotic dishes without racking up thousands of food miles. We work closely with our local suppliers to ensure that every product is organic, that every chicken is hormone-free and that every cow is grass-fed. We also support the Dock to Dish sustainable fishing program, making sure our seafood is always fresh and from just down the road. This way, local farmers and fishermen who do things right can live sustainably while you enjoy gourmet feel-good meals in between rainforest adventures.

Go behind the scenes to meet the people and see the eco-friendly technology that make Lapa Rios an award-winning sustainable property. Most of our lodge guests meet only a small fraction of our entire staff. But on this tour you may meet, among others, our grocer, our carpenter, and our laundress. You will also see the recycling operation, solar power station, and water turbines that prove our commitment to a greener and more sustainable way of life. Lapa Rios is recognized worldwide as a model for eco-tourism. This tour shows you how and why.

At Lapa Rios we have made the conscious decision to get rid of all plastic water bottles from our property. They take vast quantities of fossil fuels to produce, and are non-biodegradable. More often than not, used bottles don’t get recycled either. Water in Costa Rica is 100% potable and we instead encourage our guests to use the reusable bottles provided at the lodge.

We have also replaced single-use plastic straws with locally-made bamboo stalks. They’re compostable which helps us reduce the amount of non-recyclable waste we produce.