PortAventura World pushes forward with the strategy to minimise its environmental footprint, which it launched with the opening of the first zero-emissions hotel in 2019, and announces its extension to the entire resort, including all the facilities and operations of its theme parks, hotels, convention centre and offices. With this new step, the company will offset 100% of the direct emissions generated as a result of its activities to become the first carbon-neutral themed resort.
PortAventura World has implemented actions to create and consolidate a mobility model based on low energy consumption and the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions per kilometre travelled.
The carbon-neutral initiative is one example of the company’s commitment to contribute to curbing climate change, but it is not the only one.
Energy efficiency and the orientation towards clean and renewable energies allow the resort to move forward in the direction of a new energy model, in accordance with its environmental objectives. In 2019, 100% of the electricity consumed in the resort came exclusively from renewable energy sources without CO2 emissions.
Along the same lines of mitigating climate change and decarbonising the energy model, PortAventura World will put into operation in 2021 a photovoltaic plant that will provide the resort with clean and renewable energy. It will be the largest self-consumption photovoltaic plant in a resort in Europe, with an installed capacity of 7.5 MWp, and will generate a third of the electricity consumed in the resort. The photovoltaic installation will prevent the emission into the atmosphere of 4,000 tonnes of CO2 every year, the same amount of CO2 that would be absorbed by 930,000 trees.
Also, as part of this strategy, the company has made a commitment to phase out single-use plastic from the resort until its complete elimination in 2022.
By offsetting the carbon footprint, the company is playing its part in the protection of biodiversity, which has been greatly affected by the effects of environmental changes.
The economic equivalent of the carbon credits will go to protect and conserve one of the most important migration corridors on our planet. Located on the coast of Guatemala, and with an area of 54,000 hectares, the project is based in the forest area of the corridor, a natural habitat for 10% of known bird species in the world.
In addition to accelerating its commitment to carbon neutrality, the company’s biodiversity policy includes different actions such as adhesion to the Biodiversity Pact promoted by the Biodiversity Foundation, an organisation affiliated with the Spanish Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Environment; the collaboration with SEO/Birdlife to support its citizen science programme for scientific monitoring of birds in Spain; or the care of the more than 200,000 square metres of flowers, trees and shrubs that make up the resort’s entire vegetation.
“The carbon-neutral resort project is integrated into the global corporate responsibility strategy that guides the company’s decision-making to continue being a benchmark in sustainable tourism. Our strategic approach also demands that we integrate compliance with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), defined in the 2030 Agenda, into our management in order to continue generating value”, explains Choni Fernández, Director of Corporate Responsibility at PortAventura World.
PortAventura World is in the middle of its 2019-2021 strategic sustainability plan, which it actively follows in order to fulfil the established commitments, especially in regard to sustainability. In this way, it contributes to the achievement of the principles of the United Nations Global Compact and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and is aligned with the Global Code of Ethics for Tourism of the World Tourism Organisation.
