Canouan Group restored its island tourism operations within three months while strengthening long-term climate resilience

Within 24 hours of Hurricane Beryl, Canouan Group activated its emergency response procedures. The immediate priority was to enable employees to recover while the company repaired its properties and prepared to resume operations. 

The Human Resources and Operations teams coordinated several forms of support. The company continued paying salaries and bonuses during the closure, provided financial assistance to employees who had lost homes or personal belongings, and repaired and upgraded staff accommodation. It also helped provide water to affected households, while the local clinic team supported employees requiring medical assistance. 

At the same time, operational teams repaired hotels, villas, utilities and supporting infrastructure. By addressing employee recovery and physical reconstruction in parallel, the company was able to mobilize the workforce required to reopen its properties.

Once immediate operations had been stabilized, Canouan Group began converting the emergency response into a longer-term resilience model. 

The company established the Canouan Resilience Fund, allocating 10 per cent of the revenue generated from guest stays to disaster preparedness and recovery. Linking the fund to hotel revenue created a recurring financing mechanism rather than relying solely on emergency allocations after a disaster. 

The company also strengthened its physical and operational systems to reduce exposure to stronger storms, sea-level rise and service disruptions. Measures included upgrading hotels, villas and utilities; introducing backup utility systems; integrating renewable energy and water-recycling solutions; and incorporating insurance and disaster-risk planning into investment decisions. 

Procurement and warehousing were progressively centralized to secure supply routes and improve access to essential materials during periods of disruption. These actions were designed to reduce the dependence of island operations on individual transport links, suppliers and utility systems.

In 2024, Mandarin Oriental, Canouan began implementing the Circularity Lab as part of the wider resilience strategy. Its resource-management components included an in-house water bottling plant and a waste-management facility. In 2025, the property developed the procedures and internal practices needed to integrate these systems into daily operations.

 For water management, the property installed an in-house bottling system, introduced refillable water points and incorporated rainwater-management measures. The model aimed to reduce dependence on imported bottled water while also limiting packaging waste.

For waste management, different material streams are separated at source and connected to specific reuse or recycling routes: 

• suitable food waste is transferred to local goat farmers for use as animal feed; 
• PET bottles, aluminium cans, HDPE containers, glass bottles and coffee capsules are separated at source and transferred to recycling partners. 
• specialized arrangements were established for electronic and hazardous waste. 

The property also introduced operational measures intended to prevent waste before it was generated. These included responsible procurement, refillable guest amenities, reduced paper use, linen and towel reuse programmes and the progressive elimination of single-use PET products. The Winnow food-waste monitoring system was introduced in kitchens to help teams identify where food was being discarded and adjust preparation and purchasing practices accordingly.

In December 2025, the Circularity Lab was expanded to SOHO Beach House Canouan, making it the only property in the entire SOHO House Group to feature a dedicated Sustainability Attendant on its payroll.

Canouan Group worked with conservation organizations that could provide the technical expertise required to protect the natural assets on which island tourism depends. Richmond Vale Academy supported coral reef restoration activities, while the Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Conservation Fund collaborated on sea turtle protection programmes. 

The Group also developed a tortoise sanctuary and release programme and invested in reef and mangrove protection as part of its approach to biodiversity conservation and climate resilience.

By implementing the Greenview Portal—a sustainability data-management platform tailored for the hospitality sector—Canouan Group consolidated operational data on energy, water, waste, and greenhouse gas emissions across its properties. 

The platform gave operational and sustainability teams a common system for tracking performance and building environmental baselines. This supported a shift from managing individual initiatives separately towards monitoring water, waste, energy and emissions through a more structured sustainability-management process. 

Canouan Group complemented internal measurement with voluntary sustainability reporting and external hospitality sustainability assessments. Leadership supported these processes, while employees contributed operational data and implemented the corresponding procedures within kitchens, housekeeping, procurement, engineering and guest services. 

To ensure long-term engagement and transparency, Canouan Group integrated sustainability training into the onboarding process for new hires, established cross-departmental Sustainability Committees, and began sharing monthly progress reports with all stakeholders.

Hotels cannot reopen only by repairing buildings. In an island economy, employees may be affected by the same disaster as the business and may be unable to return to work without income, housing and essential services. Companies should define in advance how they will support their workforce during an extended closure.

Emergency allocations can support an immediate response, but preparedness requires funding between disasters. Linking a defined share of operating revenue to resilience can provide
a more predictable source of financing for preparedness and recovery than relying solely on extraordinary allocations after an event.

Environmental baselines should be established before new systems are expanded. Consistent data on water, energy, waste and emissions enables companies to identify priorities, compare performance over time and demonstrate whether operational changes are producing results.