Belgian B&B implements sustainable circular solutions: A case study

A bed & break­fast in Nieuw­poort, Bel­gi­um has lever­aged the sup­port of a European Uni­on-fun­ded pro­ject to imple­ment viable ‘cir­cu­lar’ solu­tions. Accord­ing to authors Angelo Sciacca, Lucien von Schomberg, and Eline Brutyn, the B&B’s own­ers have set a good example for oth­er travel & tour­ism entre­pren­eurs to follow. 

It’s a “Good Tour­ism” Insight. [You too can write a “GT” Insight.]

Travel & tour­ism plays a big part in imple­ment­ing cli­mate actions and gen­er­at­ing bene­fits for host communities. 

By apply­ing cir­cu­lar eco­nomy strategies — as opposed to the lin­ear eco­nomy or “take-use-dis­pose” mod­el of resource man­age­ment — the tour­ism sec­tor con­trib­utes to pos­it­ive loc­al and glob­al envir­on­ment­al changes by help­ing build a more resi­li­ent society. 

In this “Good Tour­ism” Insight, we share a case study in the prac­tic­al imple­ment­a­tion of cir­cu­lar solu­tions in a coastal des­tin­a­tion of the 2 Seas region (Bel­gi­um, Eng­land, France, and the Netherlands). 

“From the Isles of Scilly to Nor­folk in Eng­land and from Somme to Texel on the con­tin­ent­al side, the Inter­reg 2 Seas area cov­ers both rur­al and urb­an ter­rit­or­ies. With a total pop­u­la­tion of about 29 mil­lion inhab­it­ants, the area is one of the most densely pop­u­lated of Europe.”

_ Inter­reg 2 Seas Mers Zeeen website 

We draw on the exper­i­ence of the EU 2 Seas Inter­reg FACET pro­ject (FACET = Facil­it­at­ing the Adop­tion of Cir­cu­lar Entre­pren­eur­ship in the Tour­ism and Leis­ure Sector). 

The cir­cu­lar eco­nomy applies three prin­ciples to the mater­i­al cycles:

1. Redu­cing waste and pollution;
2. Keep­ing products and mater­i­als in use; and 
3. Regen­er­at­ing nat­ur­al systems. 

These prin­ciples play a key role in the sus­tain­able devel­op­ment of coastal des­tin­a­tions, par­tic­u­larly in response to the effects of mass tour­ism mar­kets, resource scarcity, and cli­mate change to which these geo­graph­ic areas are espe­cially vulnerable. 

The cir­cu­lar eco­nomy is an oppor­tun­ity to both min­im­ise the neg­at­ive impacts that have long been asso­ci­ated with tour­ism, and to boost the socio-eco­nom­ic and envir­on­ment­al con­tri­bu­tion that tour­ism can and should gen­er­ate for these destinations. 

For instance, the cir­cu­lar eco­nomy can:

• Lead to less depend­ency on resources;
• Pro­mote eco­nom­ic diver­si­fic­a­tion through the cre­ation of new sec­tors and jobs;
• Reduce busi­ness expos­ure to the rise of resources and energy prices;
• Decrease busi­ness oper­a­tion­al costs;
• Cre­ate new eco­nom­ic streams; and 
• Improve busi­ness rela­tion­ships with cus­tom­ers and oth­er busi­ness actors. 

Moreover, the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic has high­lighted the need for des­tin­a­tions to become more future-proof to cope with and “build back bet­ter” from future shocks. 

The cir­cu­lar eco­nomy is increas­ingly con­sidered to be the trans­form­at­ive tool for this resi­li­ence-build­ing process. 

The EU 2 Seas Interreg FACET Project 

The Inter­reg 2 Seas FACET pro­ject sup­ports a cir­cu­lar eco­nomy in coastal des­tin­a­tions by focus­ing on the 2 Seas area that includes France, Bel­gi­um, Eng­land, and the Neth­er­lands. It is fun­ded by the European Region­al Devel­op­ment Fund (ERDF). Inter­reg 2 Seas is a European Ter­rit­ori­al Cooper­a­tion programme.

FACET, which is led by NV Eco­nomis­che Impuls Zee­land, facil­it­ates the devel­op­ment of vari­ous prac­tic­al, access­ible, and small-scale pilot pro­jects to help entre­pren­eurs gain prac­tic­al know­ledge and exper­i­ence in the trans­ition from lin­ear to cir­cu­lar practices. 

Don’t miss oth­er “GT” con­tent tagged with
“Cir­cu­lar economy”

A Uni­ver­sity of Green­wich team, led by Asso­ci­ate Pro­fess­or Dr Jin Hooi Chan, acts as the know­ledge part­ner to sup­port busi­nesses in imple­ment­ing the pilots as well as con­sol­id­at­ing les­sons learned for wider dissemination. 

With a strong con­sor­ti­um of pro­ject part­ners from Flanders, the Neth­er­lands, France, and Eng­land, exper­i­ments are being con­duc­ted with cir­cu­lar applic­a­tions in the fields of cir­cu­lar accom­mod­a­tion, cir­cu­lar waste reduc­tion, and oth­er cir­cu­lar operations. 

Some of the cir­cu­lar eco­nomy pilots include:

• The val­or­isa­tion of shell­fish waste in Baie de Somme in France; 
• Cir­cu­lar accom­mod­a­tion of Camp­ing and Vil­lapark De Paardekreek in the Neth­er­lands; and 
• The Hemsby Com­munity Cups in England. 

Here we present the cir­cu­lar approach of B&B De Arend in Belgium. 

The case of B&B De Arend 

The B&B De Arend and Tea Room Cor­net de la Mer is situ­ated on the Bel­gian coast in the his­tor­ic­al city centre of Nieuw­poort. It is now two years into its jour­ney toward sus­tain­able cir­cu­lar solutions. 

In 2020, B&B De Arend won a com­pet­i­tion organ­ised by the FACET pro­ject to receive a EUR 10,000 vouch­er to cov­er the cost of sus­tain­ab­il­ity audit­ing, and the sup­port of an engin­eer­ing coach to explore and design cir­cu­lar solu­tions, such as wastewa­ter recov­ery and green electricity. 

Not only for fin­an­cial reas­ons but also from a sus­tain­ab­il­ity point of view, drastic change was needed. FACET helped imple­ment vari­ous cir­cu­lar solu­tions that could inspire oth­er busi­nesses in the tour­ist sec­tor to do the same. 

One solu­tion imple­men­ted by B&B De Arend incor­por­ates “Refuse” and “Rethink” strategies on how drink­able water is provided to guests. By bot­tling their drink­able water, the busi­ness has saved up 3,500 plastic bottles annually. 

By using hybrid fin­ance schemes, De Arend inves­ted in green energy by installing 26 sol­ar pan­els, bat­ter­ies, and a hydro­gen power plant with two heat pumps that gen­er­ate elec­tri­city, hot water, and air conditioning. 

Tania and Olivi­er, the own­ers of the B&B, placed the bat­ter­ies in the hall to spark spon­tan­eous con­ver­sa­tions. “We want to show that a small B&B like ours can make a dif­fer­ence,” they said.

Before the invest­ment, there was no cent­ral heat­ing at De Arend. All six rooms had indi­vidu­al elec­tric heaters.

Since June 2021, between 20% and 50% of De Arend’s elec­tri­city has been pro­duced by the sun. The bat­ter­ies provide the rooms with power dur­ing the evenings.

The energy needed for hot water is provided by the hydro­gen pumps. Through crack­ing nat­ur­al gas into hydro­gen, these pumps can turn 1kw into 3kw. 

With an estim­ated pay­back peri­od of 8.5 years from these sus­tain­able invest­ments, De Arend has seen their monthly energy bill decrease by an aver­age of EUR 650 and they have saved 22,500 kWh of grid power. 

Their car­bon foot­print, and those of their guests, is also smaller. 

The inter­ven­tions were guided by West­to­er. 

An exper­i­enced sus­tain­ab­il­ity con­sult­ant was appoin­ted to coach Tania and Olivi­er. The con­sult­ant offered per­son­al­ised advice based on their expressed needs as well as oppor­tun­it­ies for De Arend of which they may not have been aware. The advice exten­ded to help­ing Tania and Olivi­er find sup­pli­ers to install and set up the solutions. 

Also see Angelo Sciac­ca’s oth­er “GT” Insights
“From lin­ear to cir­cu­lar: How to build resi­li­ence in small islands”
“How can a cir­cu­lar tour­ism eco­nomy help repur­pose her­it­age build­ings?”
“Save to sus­tain: Frugal innov­a­tion & tra­di­tion­al know­ledge in tourism”

Work­ing togeth­er with the expert was invaluable. 

After imple­ment­a­tion, West­to­er organ­ised a press con­fer­ence to build aware­ness and to show oth­er tour­ism SMEs a con­crete example of pos­sible cir­cu­lar invest­ments that are trans­fer­able and fin­an­cially feasible. 

This example shows how small tour­ism busi­nesses can com­mit to sus­tain­ab­il­ity and high­lights oppor­tun­it­ies for viable cir­cu­lar entre­pren­eur­ship in the tour­ism sector. 

De Arend’s philo­sophy is that sus­tain­able solu­tions should not com­prom­ise guest com­fort and lux­ury, but rather enhance it. In fact, their slo­gan is “more lux­ury with no or less impact on the environment”. 

Tania and Olivi­er proudly tell guests their story of sus­tain­able liv­ing while offer­ing them loc­ally sourced products, fully air-con­di­tioned rooms, and a well­ness garden. 

The FACET vouch­ers scheme helped Tania and Olivi­er take their first steps in imple­ment­ing cir­cu­lar solu­tions for De Arend, how­ever the suc­cess of the pro­ject mostly relied on their intrins­ic motiv­a­tion and determination. 

While fur­ther research will determ­ine to what extent they can con­vince their guests to join their jour­ney towards a more sus­tain­able future, it is worth not­ing that this is the very first green busi­ness in the region. And it sets an example for oth­ers to follow.

What do you think? Share a short com­ment, anec­dote, or ques­tion below. Or write a “GT” Insight of your own. The “Good Tour­ism” Blog wel­comes diversity of opin­ion about our travel & tour­ism industry because travel & tour­ism is everyone’s business.

Fea­tured image (top of post): Light­house at Nieuw­poort, Bel­gi­um by Wouter Martens (CC0) via Unsplash. Arrows by GDJ (CC0) via Pixabay.

About the authors

Angelo Sciacca is a Research Fel­low in Cir­cu­lar Entre­pren­eur­ship at the Uni­ver­sity of Green­wich, UK.

Lucien von Schomberg is Lec­turer in Cre­ativ­ity & Innov­a­tion at the Uni­ver­sity of Green­wich, UK.

Eline Brutyn is a Pro­ject Man­ager at West­to­er, Bel­gi­um.