The World’s Most Eco-Friendly Casinos

Melco Resorts and Entertainment

Melco Resorts is one of Asia’s biggest gambling operators and recent years have seen the company make huge progress in its quest to be sustainable.

To begin with, they banned single-use plastic amongst both workers and guests. They then set about identifying the different types of packaging used to develop further plans to deal with each type in as sustainable a manner as possible.

However, Melco in no way stopped there. It put together a sustainability strategy with several goals that it aims to meet by 2030. These include:

1. Building and operating carbon neutral resorts
2. Achieving a 20% improvement in energy performance for all new developments
3. Achieving zero waste across all resorts and contributing to the circular economy in Asia
4. Sourcing sustainable goods and services

It has an extensive policy and some truly ambitious goals. It publishes regular reports about its progress and there is no denying that it has made considerable advancements.

Melco Resorts currently operates six properties, each of which offers everything you need for a truly amazing casino holiday. It should certainly be near the top of the list if you are planning your next sustainable getaway.

The Venetian Macao

The Venetian Macao has won awards, such as the Macau Green hotel Platinum Award, for its efforts to improve its environmental impact. It has made considerable efforts to become more eco-friendly, such as introducing parking facilities for electric vehicles, reducing food waste, and using an environmentally friendly guest mattress swap scheme. Furthermore, its operator Sands China claims that by switching to LED lighting, it has saved enough electricity to power 50,000 homes for a year.

The Venetian Macao is certainly a fantastic holiday destination. It is one of Asia’s leading business, leisure, shopping and entertainment destinations and it is home to luxury suites, more than 325 stores at Shoppes at Venetian, cuisines from across the globe, and non-stop entertainment. The casino itself is over 50,000 square metres with more than 500 gaming tables and 2,000 slot machines, which should be enough for even the most enthusiastic of players.

MGM Resorts

MGM Resorts operates several venues and it began taking steps to become more environmentally friendly a number of years ago. For instance, MGM China announced plans to eliminate plastic straws and cutlery, after estimating that it was throwing away 860,000 straws and 470,000 takeout boxes each year.

In Vegas, the company recently launched MGM Resorts’ Mega Solar Array, the hospitality industry’s largest directly sourced renewable electricity project worldwide. It now produces up to 90% of MGM Resorts’ Las Vegas daytime power needs.

The company has also set itself four goals for 2025: the reduction of carbon emissions per square foot by 45%, the reduction of energy per square foot by 25%, the reduction of water per square foot by 30%, and to achieve a 60% materials diversion rate.

There are further goals for 2030: to reduce carbon emissions per square foot by 50%, to reduce energy per square foot by 30%, to reduce water per square foot by 35%, and to achieve 75% materials diversion from landfill.

As a result, you should be able to enjoy a stay at any of the fantastic MGM Resorts with a clear conscience.

Resorts World Sentosa

The Resorts World Sentosa is a breath-taking casino resort in Singapore. A number of years ago, it became amongst the first to stop using plastic straws as part of its environmental efforts. This was applied to all of its venues, such as Universal Studios Singapore and S.E.A. Aquarium, which meant they reduced the amount of plastic thrown out into landfills by around 1.2 tonnes.

The company has since made a number of additional commitments such as to:

• Reduce energy consumption and maximise energy efficiency through energy-efficient systems and solutions, green building  and adoption of renewable energy 
• Waste reduction and recycling: Identify innovative ways to drive 3Rs and effective waste management across the resort 
• Water efficiency and closed loop: Reduce water consumption and closed loop system e.g. rainwater harvesting
• Biodiversity: Adopt holistic biodiversity conservation approach to preserve and build supportive relationship with our environment 
• Responsible sourcing: ensure materials are harvested in sustainable ways and minimize environmental impact of “used” products

With such impressive policies, visitors to the resort can be confident that their environmental impact will be as minimal as possible.

Mandalay Bay Resort

As part of MGM Resorts, the Mandalay Bay Resort adheres to the same policies as those described above for the company as a whole. However, this resort is particularly impressive. For example, they have numerous policies designed to cut down on food waste, they make every effort to use locally sourced ingredients, they sort waste out by recycling on site, and so on.

The resort also does things such as donating linen that deemed is no longer fit for use by guests to the NSCPA (Nevada Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) and it turns off the heating systems in particular areas at times when it is not needed. As such, it is an excellent choice for those who are worried about social responsibility.

Caesar’s Entertainment

Caesar’s is another gambling operator with a strong sense of social responsibility. For instance, working together with Clean the World, a non-profit organisation, it has donated millions of bars of soap to people in 100 countries. Essentially, when guests don’t use the complimentary toiletries, they are then sent to people who need them and back in 2010, the company won the Environmental Leader Award for the initiative.

The company also has a number of impressive environmental goals:

• Science Based GHG Targets: Reduce Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 35% by 2025 and 100% by 2050
• Science Based Scope 3 Target: 60% of suppliers by spend institute science-based GHG reduction targets for their operations by 2023
• Energy: Reduce consumption by 30% by 2020 and 40% by 2025 per air-conditioned sq. foot against a 2007 baseline
• Water: Reduce consumption by 20% by 2020 and 25% by 2025 per air-conditioned sq. foot against at 2008 baseline
• Waste: Achieve 50% diversion by 2020 and 60% by 2025
• LEED: All newly built and expanded properties achieve LEED certification

Caesars updates its environmental policies on a very regular basis to ensure that they are doing all that they can to be eco-friendly, and the results are truly impressive.

Sibaya Casino

The Sibaya casino, operated by Sun International and located in Durban in South Africa, is extremely serious about waste reduction. It encourages all staff and guests to recycle, reuse and reduce, and food waste is sent to a compost. Better yet, the compost is actually a wormery, meaning that the worms make their way through the waste.

Sun International also has a number of impressive eco-friendly policies and it is committed to promoting sustainable business practices across all aspects of the group. These include improving electricity efficiency, reducing water supply, not sending any waste to landfill, reducing greenhouse emissions, and sustaining food security.