Indonesia hospitality sector makes business case for investing in nature

Investing in nature is shifting from a CSR exercise to a business consideration for Indonesia’s hospitality and F&B sectors, according to panellists at a recent sustainability talk show, Building Resilience Through Nature: Why Investing in Nature Matters for Business, in Jakarta. The event was organised by Artotel Group, The Bimasena and Bumiterra.

Industry leaders discussed how environmental initiatives, from forest restoration partnerships in West Kalimantan to supply chain decarbonisation, can reduce utility costs and protect agricultural supplies.

Erastus Radjimin, founder and CEO of Artotel Group, said operational changes in hospitality could deliver environmental benefits while reducing costs. Under Artotel’s ESG framework, The Art of Goodness, one environmental pillar focuses on resource management.

“It can be reduced, recycled, waste management, zero plastics, consumption power of energy, water – we have to manage them well,” he said. “From a hotel’s profitability perspective, when we do all this, it’s giving a direct impact of saving costs.”

Artotel has also partnered with Indonesian forest restoration and nature-based climate solutions company Bumiterra, dedicating one hectare to reforestation in West Kalimantan.

“As a hotel company, we do not know much about sustainability… so we collaborate with local believers,” Erastus added.

Matt Leggett, founder and CEO of ecosystem builder and impact investment firm Terratai, said nature should increasingly be considered infrastructure and a means of managing risks such as air pollution, water insecurity and agricultural disruption.

“We’re increasingly in a world where nature could be seen as infrastructure,” Leggett said. “(Environmental degradation) has an impact on clean water and people’s ability to access that, (and) pollination of crops will be affected.”

He added: “There are fundamentally interconnected costs and risks associated with nature, and those costs are being recognised by investors not only as a risk, but as an imperative.”

MAKA Group, parent company of coffee shop brand Toko Kopi Tuku, is applying similar considerations to its operations. CEO Adisti Ikayanti said the company’s approach extends from barista training to supply chain management, particularly as the sector faces climate-related risks.

“Every food ingredient is an agricultural product, so there’s resilience risk there; there’s scarcity,” she stressed. “In the past year, with the number of natural disasters, we are seeing direct impact to the farmers that support us, so that impact is very real even for the business P&L. Your business has a direct dependency upon the nature’s condition. If that understanding is drilled down throughout the organisation, that no longer becomes the talk of only the sustainability team. It becomes the talk of the whole organisation from end to end.”

Panellists also pointed to smaller initiatives as a starting point. Erastus said Artotel began by upcycling unused hotel bed sheets into reusable grocery bags and encouraging staff to adopt utility-saving practices, while Adisti said Toko Kopi Tuku initially focused on waste-sorting awareness among baristas before making changes to packaging.