Singita Serengeti is a wildlife reserve in Tanzania that is committed to environmentally conscious hospitality, wildlife conservation and community outreach. It has been using One Planet Living® to drive its sustainability efforts since 2012.
One Planet Living is Bioregional’s sustainability framework, comprising ten simple principles that help organisations plan, create and communicate sustainability.
This review tracks Singita Serengeti’s progress towards the targets set out in its One Planet Action Plan, which Bioregional recognised in 2013 as demonstrating leadership.
Partnership between Singita Serengeti and Grumeti Fund
Grumeti Fund was formed in 2003 as a not-for-profit organisation to manage and conserve the 142,000-hectare concession of land known as Singita Grumeti. Singita Serengeti and the Grumeti Fund have created a unique partnership, to combine high-quality tourism with conservation and community outreach efforts. One Planet Living is at the heart of these efforts.
Graham Ledger, Singita Grumeti Reserves Managing Director
Every day when I look out of my office window, I am reminded how privileged we are to live and work in one of Africa’s most remarkable places.
It’s a constant reminder of how our lives are directly intertwined with nature and inspires us to work harder every day to leave as small of a footprint as possible. One Planet Living continues to provide us with the ideal framework to strategically plan and execute activities to achieve this aim.
We’ve reached many new milestones in 2019 and our work has benefitted greatly from the enthusiasm that our new One Planet Co-ordinator, Vee, is bringing to the role. I’ve especially enjoyed:
- The successful reintroduction of several free-roaming Eastern black rhinos to the Serengeti
- Fine-tuning the new solar power system at Faru Faru Lodge
- Seeing numerous employee welfare initiatives focused on health and wellness
- Almost eliminating single-use plastic bottles.
We’ve also focused on environmental awareness training for junior staff, with sessions conducted in Swahili. I’m confident that every member of our team understands the value and importance of One Planet Living - I can see a genuine change in our staff’s habits and behaviours.
We look forward to continuing our working relationship with Bioregional to target areas where there is still room for improvement, particularly our carbon footprint and fuel consumption. There will always be more we can do, but I’m confident that we are well on track to living more sustainably and showing our neighbouring communities, and indeed a larger audience, the value of acting and operating in an environmentally responsible way.
Vee Smal, One Planet Co-ordinator at Singita Serengeti
When I joined Singita Serengeti, One Planet Living had already been in use for more than 6 years. But with more than 1000 people living and working onsite, keeping staff engagement alive is still vital to ensuring we achieve our strategy.
My current focus is starting conversations about sustainability and setting people on the path to making small changes – that’s the first step.
And One Planet Living helps with this. The way that the framework is broken down into principles creates specific talking points – helping people feel empowered, rather than overwhelmed by the whole picture of sustainability.
One of the most effective things I’ve done so far is creating a ‘One Planet movie’ with staff - asking them to help me explain what One Planet Living is and how we use it at Singita Serengeti. I got far more buy-in through this process than if I had made a film about it on my own.
It made my heart so warm to see people talking about and discovering their impact, thinking about how they could change - especially around eating meat, which is an important part of local culture.
It feels so good to be part of something where you are making real change, little by little. With One Planet Living, everyone can play a part in reducing the footprint of the company.
Ben Gill, One Planet Living Manager at Bioregional
Singita has been hit hard by Covid-19. There have been no visitors for months and it’s unclear when they will return. Conservation in general has also been affected, with reports that people have been turning to poaching just to survive.
Protecting the environment has slipped down the news agenda, yet the arrival of Covid-19, and other novel flus, highlights the danger of human’s encroaching on space that needs to be left for nature. We must heed these warnings by rapidly freeing up more space for wildlife and regenerating our planet.
Singita’s impressive work to protect its natural ecosystem and create local jobs has only become more vital. We’re impressed to see its waste and water management system remain best practice for the region, as well as the exciting impacts of The Grumeti Fund’s conservation and community outreach efforts.
We’d like Singita Serengeti to recognise that this ‘break’ allows for a sustainable reset to ‘build back better’ – with a concerted effort on changing habits, perceptions and provision of greener vehicles and transport options.
It is almost certainly no exaggeration to say that if the global rebound from Covid-19 does not put us on a path to a sustainable economy, we will have missed our final chance to avert climate disaster. At a local level, if Singita Singita does not put in place a new system to enable sustainable transport and behaviour now, the opportunity may not arise again.
Operationally 2019 has been quite a challenging year at Singita, with an increase in carbon emissions and water consumption at the whole company level. Yet, with years of groundwork, Singita has many specific examples of significantly reducing its environmental impact that it can draw on.
Singita’s challenge is to take these individual examples and make them the norm across all its properties. We believe it can do so and continue to act as a leader in sustainable tourism.
One Planet Living highlights
- Grumeti Fund’s Rural Enterprise Development Programme supported 267 entrepreneurs. Participants in the one-on-one mentoring programme achieved 41% growth in turnover, with female participants experiencing an exceptional 105% average growth
- 3,269 girls from 13 secondary schools joined female empowerment sessions to talk about issues such as female genital mutilation and menstrual hygiene
- 9 eastern black rhinos were relocated from South Africa to Grumeti – the largest rhino relocation in Tanzanian history
- Water and waste management remain best practice, with an overall 30% reduction in water use at the lodges since 2013 and 98% reduction in plastic bottle waste
- The new RISE (Research and Innovation for the Serengeti Ecosystem) facility is highly sustainable – harnessing solar energy, harvesting rainwater and eliminating the need for air conditioning
One Planet Living stories
Taking care of Zaituni – an eastern black rhino orphan
In November 2019, Tanzania National Parks Authority requested support from the Grumeti Fund when a five-month old rhino calf was found orphaned in the National Park. With less than 1,000 eastern black rhinos in the world, each one is immensely precious.
Four members of the team quickly became full-time caregivers dedicated to looking after the calf named Zaituni (Swahili for Olive). The goal for Zaituni is that she will be released back into the wild.
“Zaituni’s success story has not only been due to her irrefutably strong character and her undeniable will to survive but also to the incredible, dedicated team of her four Tanzanian caretakers, who have looked after her round the clock since her arrival in November… Baragi, Joseph, Wambura and Bukare should all be extremely proud of what has been accomplished thus far, this is history in the making!” Matt Perry, Conservation Manager at the Grumeti Fund.
RISE – Grumeti Fund’s new highly sustainable building
RISE (Research and Innovation for the Serengeti Ecosystem) is Grumeti Fund’s new applied research program and facility. It will support local researchers, monitor human-wildlife conflict across protected areas and run programmes such as ‘Women in the Field’ to encourage more women to get involved in conservation.
The RISE building is designed to be as low impact as possible and eliminate the need for any air conditioning by using a passive cooling system. It gathers all its energy from the sun, incorporates rainwater harvesting and wastewater treatment, and reduces energy use.
Bioregional’s recommendations
While all strategies and recommendations must be reassessed due to Covid-19, we still believe that Singita Serengeti can achieve the hugely ambitious targets it set in 2013.
If Singita can use the time without guests to implement the following strategies and actions in the coming months, then it will be able to rebound on a strong sustainable footing:
Zero carbon energy
There is a promising proposal for renewable energy at Sasakwa Hill under development – this needs to be bought to fruition quickly and in-line with Singita’s zero-carbon ambitions
Travel and transport
Covid-19 has created a change in sustainable transport globally, with a rise in remote working and cycling for commuting. All staff understand that they will need to operate differently in the future. Singita Serengeti should take the opportunity to make sure that shifting away from individual vehicles forms part of that.
About Singita
Singita’s core vision is to preserve and protect large tracts of wilderness in Africa for future generations. Dedicated to environmentally conscious hospitality, sustainable conservation and the empowerment of local communities, Singita, meaning “place of miracles,” was founded in 1993. Its mission is to share a unique part of the world while maintaining respect for the natural environment and challenging accepted notions of luxury.
Today, Singita is the guardian of more than a million acres of pristine land in Africa and responsible for successful community development projects, making a tangible difference in the lives of the people living and working in and around its lodges. Singita operates 12 lodges and camps, each a unique experience in its own right, in five regions across three countries in Africa. Singita Serengeti has been using One Planet Living since 2012 and the parent company committed to applying the One Planet Living framework to all of its operations in 2016.
About Bioregional
Bioregional is a social enterprise and registered charity which champions a better, more sustainable way to live. We work with partners to create better places for people to live, work and do business. We want to see thriving regional economies where we meet more of our needs from local, renewable and waste resources, enabling people to live happy, healthy lives within the natural limits of the planet, leaving space for wildlife and wilderness. We call this One Planet Living.