The Langham’s dinner buffet in Hong Kong is a showcase of Chinese cuisine. You can find an extensive selection of dim sum, wonton dumplings, barbecue, and tofu pudding for dessert. But the luxury hotel’s spread is also at the forefront of the city’s sustainability efforts.

Whenever you grab a few oysters from the buffet, you’re helping save the planet. The restaurant saves the shells and processes them into cement. It’s a new collaborative effort between the luxury hotel and its sister property, the Eaton HK.

“Sustainability is important to us,” says Louis Jin, the general manager of The Langham, Hong Kong. 

Hong Kong, known for its towering skyline and high-energy lifestyle, might not be the first place visitors would associate with environmental stewardship. But forward-thinking hotels in this Asian financial hub are quietly pioneering initiatives to make the city’s hospitality sector more sustainable.

Louis Jin, the general manager of The Langham Hong Kong. The Langham has embarked on an ambitious project to recycle oyster shells.

Food sustainability is on the menu at the Four Seasons Hong Kong

At the Four Seasons Hong Kong, a gleaming high-rise hotel overlooking Victoria Harbor, sustainability efforts include extensive waste management and a long list of community partnerships.

One major focus area is food waste, according to executive chef Maxime Luvara. The hotel partners with Foodlink, a local organization that takes leftover edible food from events and the buffet daily and redistributes it to the community.

“Last year, we collected 10 tons of food for redistribution,” he says.

Ultimately, the goal is to reduce food waste to as close to zero as possible. The Four Seasons’ kitchens use a connected scale system to weigh discarded food daily and track leftovers. The hotel sorts its food waste, sending compostable items to a special holding area, where it’s turned into reusable mulch.

Luvara is also working with his team to reduce energy usage. That’s proven to be one of its biggest challenges. Chinese chefs are used to having constant running water in their kitchens, which is used to clean a wok quickly between dishes. The hotel’s engineers are working on a way to use a sensor to turn on the faucet.

“We’re having a conversation about the energy we’re using in every kitchen,” says Luvara. “Where can we save? We’re talking to all of our chefs and we’re trying to figure out where we can save energy.”

Across the hotel, there are other conservation initiatives. The Four Seasons has eliminated single-use plastic food and beverage containers and plastic water bottles from guest rooms, replaced by glass bottled water. The hotel uses eco-certified cleaning products, and the spa features brands that prioritize sustainability. 

Overall, the Four Seasons is low-key about promoting its sustainability efforts, which seems to be a common theme in Hong Kong.

Oysters at The Langham’s dinner buffet. The shells are recycled and turned into cement.

At the Cordis an enduring commitment to the environment

The Cordis, Hong Kong, an upscale hotel in Kowloon, holds EarthCheck master certifications, recognizing its 15 years of environmental stewardship. EarthCheck tracks a hotel’s performance in real time, including energy use, water use, carbon emissions and chemicals. And 15 years of EarthCheck certification, which is required for a master certification, is practically unheard of in Hong Kong.

Zoe Wong, the property’s senior sustainability officer, explains that this long-standing commitment stemmed from the owner’s vision to use Cordis, Hong Kong as a pilot hotel within the Langham Hospitality Group. Successful sustainability practices developed here are now shared across all brands under the group’s sustainability program “CONNECT.” 

Cordis has done almost everything it can to be sustainable. It has replaced plastic water bottles in rooms with glass bottles and provides guest refill stations, a simple but impactful change. The hotel uses waste measurement systems to track and reduce kitchen leftovers daily. It has created a range of eco-friendly projects, from recycling oyster shells to repurposing wooden boards for decoration to creating sustainable Christmas trees from recycled materials.

Conservation is also a focus through a partnership with the Ocean Park Conservation Foundation Hong Kong, specifically supporting Red Panda conservation. The hotel has two Red Panda mascots, Cody and Coco, and proceeds from related merchandise and guest donations directly benefit the foundation. There’s even a special family room with panda-themed decorations.

The emphasis on educating kids isn’t accidental.

“We wanted kids to know about our sustainability efforts,” says Wong. “The world belongs to the future generation. The earlier we educate them about sustainability, the better.”

The Langham pursues circularity — and oyster shells 

Back at The Langham, Hong Kong, the headline is oyster shells. The hotel is part of a pilot program that diverts discarded oyster shells from landfills to be repurposed into cement. 

Oyster shells are perfect for this process because they are composed of 91 percent limestone, a primary ingredient in cement production. Mining limestone is a carbon-intensive activity, so every shell counts.

The collaboration allows Langham’s partner, Green Island Cement, to collect shells that have already been cleaned by hotel chefs after dining. Since the pilot’s inception in March 2023, the initiative has successfully saved almost 10 tons of oyster shells from landfill, converting them into sustainable cement products. The aim is to reduce waste while also alleviating the demand for virgin limestone.

But The Langham’s commitment to sustainability extends beyond this innovative upcycling program. As part of The Langham Hospitality Group, the hotel adheres to comprehensive environmental management systems benchmarked and certified by EarthCheck. Like its sister property, Cordis, it is pursuing the highest green certification. 

So it’s no surprise that The Langham focuses on reducing waste and conserving resources. This includes programs for managing food waste, such as sending prepared, uncooked ingredients to organizations that cook for target populations, and carefully managing buffet leftovers that are still safe to eat. 

Langham recently hit a milestone when it came to single-use plastics, says Jin, the hotel’s general manager.

“We finally removed all the one-time use plastics last year,” he says.

Jin says he isn’t leaving well enough alone. Although guests aren’t exactly clamoring for a more sustainable hotel, he says event managers have started to ask about his sustainability efforts. And ultimately, doing right by the environment is the right thing to do, even if guests aren’t directly requesting a greener hotel stay.

Hotels in Hong Kong want to be low-key environmental leaders

Hong Kong may not be the first city that comes to mind when considering global leaders in sustainability. The efforts undertaken by hotels like The Langham, Four Seasons, and Cordis reveal a quiet and consistent commitment to environmental responsibility. 

These hotels are embedding sustainable practices into their core operations – from revolutionizing waste streams like oyster shells, to meticulous tracking of food waste, eliminating single-use plastics, and investing in fundamental infrastructure changes like water bottling plants and energy-efficient building materials. 

Sustainability may not always be visible to the average traveler, and as The Langham’s general manager noted, the focus is less on outward promotion and more on practical implementation of internal standards. But in a densely populated city, conserving precious resources and navigating the challenges of sustainable sourcing sends a powerful message that caring for the environment is important — even when no one is looking.