An oasis of elegance and tranquility awaits the guests of Unique Blue Resort & Villas in beloved Heraklion, overlooking the Cretan Sea. A member of Sentido Hotels & Resorts, this 5-star seaside hotel is built in front of a uniquely beautiful sandy beach. A hospitality paradise with 120 rooms and 245 beds, is open to those who are ready to enjoy truly relaxing holidays in a carefree environment.
It is a commitment for our UNIQUE BLUE RESORT & VILLAS hotel to ensure sustainability by considering our impact on the environment, our employees, and the local community. Bearing in mind all the commitments of our organization described in the Corporate Policies we have initially captured our activities in this Sustainability Report.
Environment
Our vision is to remain faithful to the tradition of Greek hospitality and based on the defined operating standards of ISO 14001, to offer our customers, through professional and friendly staff, qualitative and safe services, which are constantly evolving, improving, and protecting the environment.
Our Environmental Policy includes:
▪ Τhe assessment of the environmental impact of our activities with the aim of reducing or even eliminating the negative impact on the environment.
▪ Acting in every possible way to protect the environment and prevent pollution.
▪ Ensuring a comfortable and quiet stay for customers at the hotel.
▪ Τhe maintenance of excellent condition of our facilities and the operation of our equipment.
▪ Creative interaction with local agencies and participation in environmental activities
All of us: the Management and the employees at the hotel, believe in continuous improvement and are committed to the following, which constitute the Environmental Policy of our company:
1. To faithfully implement and continuously improve the Environmental Management System according to ISO 14001:2015.
2. To carry out actions to save energy, reduce water consumption, properly manage the produced wastewater, and reduce and properly manage the produced solid waste
3. To maintain the good quality of the atmospheric air
4. To protect the beach and water quality
5. To comply with any statutory or other requirements to which our business activities fall.
Employees
- Complies with statutory requirements for workers and human rights legislation.
- We treat our employees with equality, regardless of their age, any disabilities, their nationality, their caste, their race, their religion, their sexual preference.
- We give everyone equal rights and opportunities for career advancement and progress.
- We train our employees every year so that they are aware of the processes in which they are involved.
- We pay all our employees a salary that exceeds the Collective Labor Agreements
- All employees adhere to their eight-hour workday and are paid extra when and if they work overtime
- We are committed to investigating any employee complaint of mistreatment or unfair treatment by the business.
Local community
- We try to recruit workers from the local community every year and more and we have managed to have the highest percentage of 83% from the local community.
- We prefer suppliers who come from the local community
- We carry out environmental activities:
1) Hotel Beach Cleaning
2) Cleaning an abandoned building east of the hotel
PERFORMANCE – TARGETING
Our organization has set and monitors several business goals related to sustainable development, which are distinguished at various levels. Through their gradual achievement, it will contribute to balanced development and the fair management of resources. By starting the recording of the current situation, we were able to set objective and measurable goals.
Target
Current situation
Environment
Increase in material recycling (glass, etc) by 5%
Through the continuous training of the staff, we will manage to raise their awareness and achieve our goal. For the current season we have achieved the following:
Stabilization of water consumption at 0.45 km. /
individual overnight stay.
The water consumption for a 5-star hotel is defined in the literature at 0.50 m3/night. Registering our consumptions, we have:
Our goal is to reduce water consumption by implementing:
Regular leak checks
Customer awareness with in-room information
Recording and control of water consumption
Information and training of staff on good practices in water use
Placement in faucets and cisterns and shower economy mechanisms.
Reduction of total energy consumption by 2-3%
The current situation is as follows:
We notice that we have a decrease in the total energy of 2021 with 2022 and 2023, which is due to the operation of the photovoltaic panels.
We also observe a redistribution of energy with a reduction in the energy used and an increase in LPG. This is mainly due to the operation of the second kitchen in the Α la carte.
2-3% reduction in chemicals
The current situation is as follows:
We notice that we have small increases and decreases. We notice that:
- regarding the food sections we have a significant decrease compared to 2021 and a small increase in 2023 compared to 2022. This is since 2023 when the A la carte operation started every day.
- In housekeeping we observe a decrease in consumption in 2023 and 2022 compared to 2021 when the health protocols of the pandemic were still in place.
- Finally, in terms of maintenance consumption, we have a decrease in 2022 compared to 2021 and an increase in 2023 compared to 2022. This is justified by the fact that in the first case we have the abolition of health protocols and in 2023 we have the expansion of the hotel with the addition of the villas.
- With the continuous training of the staff and awareness of the customers we will try to achieve our goal.
Employees
Sustainability
The staff is at a good level of understanding of responsibilities in relation to sustainability management as evidenced by records.
Labor rights
Vesting of rights in personnel contracts in accordance with the law and the SSE 2023
Salary
Working hours
Personnel training
The staff has followed the 2023 training program concerning:
Rules of hygiene and food safety, use of cleaning agents, recycling of materials, fire safety, good environmental practices, and in the policies of Safety and Health at work, child protection, human resource management, legionella preventive measures, corovirus preventive measures.
The policy will be reviewed annually for its continued suitability.
Giorgos Papadakis
Hotel manager
Aminssos, Heraklion
25/10/2023