"For the second consecutive year Spier was the country's top achiever at the prestigious Concours Mondial des Bruxelles competition."
Nicola Jenvey, Wineweek 2011
News
Spier wins global accolade for Conde Nast Traveler World Savers Awards
South African tourism has been given a boost with the announcement that Stellenbosch wine farm, Spier, has the won the top award in the Doing it All category in the 2011 Condé Nast Traveler World Savers awards. Competing against major resorts world-wide, Spier won the top award in the Poverty Alleviation category and came second in the Environmental Preservation category. They received an honourable mention in the Health and Education categories as well. This resulted in their overall win in the Doing it All category.
In announcing the awards, Condé Nast Traveler editor, Klara Glowczewska, said “Spier is truly leading the industry in developing the most progressive and creative projects - a shining example for the rest of the industry to follow.” The awards go to companies that are doing serious work in the realm of social responsibility, an increasingly important factor in traveller’s trip-making decisions.
Spier CEO, Andrew Milne, who will receive the award in Singapore in October, said that the news was an acknowledgement of the value of Spier’s investment in the environment, its people and its heritage.
The awards are based on guidelines developed by the Tourism Sustainability Council (TSC), an initiative of the UN Foundation, UNEO, the UN World Tourism Organisation, the Rainforest Alliance and others, which use the global baseline criteria to develop an accreditation standard for sustainable tourism certification programs.
Entries were judged by a team of dedicated editors, who narrowed down entries to finalists. The finalist entries were sent to a panel of independent judges. Competitors will have included resorts, travel companies, tour operators, hotel chains, city hotels, resorts, cruise lines and airlines.
The awards are made in five categories:
- Poverty Alleviation,
- Health Initiatives,
- Education Initiatives,
- Environmental and Cultural Preservation, and
- Wildlife Conservation.
Companies whose projects encompass all these activities are eligible to be entered into the Doing it All category as won by Spier.
The resort's outstanding record in water and waste management, agriculture, social responsibility and cultural and environmental preservation all contributed to the judges' decision.
Milne added that “water conservation and recycling are strategic business and environmental issues that Spier takes seriously. Our waste water system on the farm can process up to 250,000 litres of wastewater per day from diverse sources including the hotel, restaurants, wine cellar and farm. It would take a river 350 kilometers to purify what Spier’s effluent plant can do in one day.”
This approach is mirrored in numerous other closed-loop systems. Spier recycles over 80% of its solid waste, and has begun introducing biodynamic farming practices that are rehabilitating the soils on its lands.
“Spier invests extensively in far-reaching staff initiatives. It has also initiated an enterprise development approach, which seeks to establish entrepreneurs and direct a portion of its procurement spend to these local, small, black-empowered businesses.” said Milne.
In addition Spier employs a Wellness Coordinator to implement Spier’s wellness programmes in HIV/Aids training and testing. This is supported by a healthy eating programme and an onsite biokinetist. Amongst other support initiatives, Spier provides free basic primary and occupational health care services. Employees are given access to specialist therapists in counselling for trauma, alcohol abuse, marital difficulties and family abuse. Spier is committed to learning and development and has introduced a Learning Spend initiative. The Individual Learning Spend is available as a personal training allocation to address skills that fall beyond the immediate workplace requirements and empower staff beyond the workplace. This is combined with access to an Employee Development specialist who assists with a personalised career development session.
The awards were announced in the September issue of Condé Nast Traveler which is on sale internationally from mid- August 2011.
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