🌿 Earlier this month, on March 4th, we welcomed esteemed researchers and colleagues from the Coral Triangle Center, Konservasi Indonesia, Elasmobranch Project Indonesia, the Department of Fisheries Technology from the Institut Pertanian Bogor (IPB University), university faculty members from Holland, and other conservation organizations to Ceningan Resort and Ceningan Divers for a round table on sustainable development and a tour of our eco facilities. With our co-founder Robert leading the way, the group attended a presentation on the challenges of building and maintaining our facilities with a focal commitment to environmental sustainability.

1. The Challenges of Building a Sustainable
Eco Resort (Updated 2024)
CeninganDivers.com
• Robert Scales
• Co-founder, Ceningan Divers
• Green Fins Top-Rated Operator
• We achieved A Zero-score in our 2024
annual assessment

2. This is not sustainable

3. At home, school or work

4. "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can
change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." - Margaret Mead

5. Why Should We All Obsess Over Supporting
Green Businesses?
The world needs our help to keep our ocean sustainable for future generations.
Green businesses tend to adopt a higher code of conduct. They aim to limit their
impact by offering alternative solutions and services.
Because the alternative is no alternative.

6. In this sustainable business talk, we will explore the process we
followed while building our PADI ECO Resort.
Are you thinking of “Going Green”?
Developing an Eco Resort or an alternative business with a
focus on conservation, the environment, sustainability and
maintaining eco-friendly standards is a noble goal however it
requires research, capital and time investments, and patience!

8. (9 years later, we are still working on our action plan…)
8 Steps We Followed While Transforming
Our Legacy Infrastructures Into A
Sustainable Eco Resort.

9. 1) Dreaming of Going Green
This is where most of us
get stuck.
We have great ideas, we
subscribe to the eco
ideologies however, we’re
unsure how to move
forward.
We need to take the
fi
rst
step to turn our dreams
into a reality!

10. 2) Researching Options
We committed to building an eco business, we read
about successful case studies and we aspired to follow
these principles and turn our intent into actions.
There’s plenty of resources for businesses to access,
information is at our
fi
nger tips.

11. 3) Reaching Out
Realizing that others had already achieved similar goals, we
sought their help and expertise.
There was no need to reinvent the wheel: We could learn
from others.
We reached out to the community! We were amazed by the
support we received.

12. 4) Finding Role Models
We looked for other people who
had “been there, done that”.
We recruited experienced people
to assist us realize our goals.
When we started to reach out, we
found likeminded people who had
already tried different options.
We learned from their mistakes
and experience.

13. 5) Setting Goals
• Where should we allocate our resources and time?
• What are our priorities?
• How can we reduce the impact of our business on our local
community?
• What are our main issues: A lack of power, lack of water, need
for more help/human resource, local conservation, waste
management, community education, community outreach and
development programs?
Once we identi
fi
ed our problem areas, we planned to resolve each
of them accordingly.

14. 6) Planning our Projects
We had problems and solutions. We
had many ideas and great examples to
follow.
Which project(s) should we tackle
fi
rst?
We needed to be smart with our
allocation of resources.
We prioritized our list and weighted the
pros and cons.

15. 7) Developing our Projects
We committed our energy and moved forward with our action plan.
We started by upgrading our old / legacy facilities or building following sustainable
standards. We banned single-use plastic, optimized our energy conservation, built bio
septic system, installed rain water cache, committed ourselves to using no chemicals, setup
recycling and composting systems. The list is long!
We turned our ideas into reality however it required trials and errors. Despite our research
and hard work, we learned by making mistakes. Things that worked for others failed for us.

16. 8) Maintenance
Once we had our eco resort running, we needed to maintain these
new facilities and systems. We realized the learning was just
getting started.
We needed to allocate more resources to ensure our new policies
and systems remained sustainable. This required ongoing
commitment: Staff training, community outreach and a continuity
action plan needed to be put in place to ensure our hard work was
not in vain.

17. Building a
Sustainable Business
D e v e l o p i n g a s u c c e s s f u l ,
sustainable eco business required
a great deal of resources and
commitment on our part.
There were many reasons for us
to Go Green. We opted to make
these changes because we
wanted to create a space that
re
fl
ected our personal values.
It is one of the best decisions we
ever made. Our guests love our
PADI ECO Resort.
“Be the change you want to be in
the world you seek to create.”

18. Eco Initiatives Ceningan Divers Has Put In Place
TOP-RATED GREEN FINS OPERATOR
Green Fins is an approach to sustainable marine tourism activities that works with business operators,
communities and governments. It helps to implement environmental standards for the diving and snorkelling
industry through a code of conduct. The overall aim of the initiative is to mitigate damaging impacts to the
marine environment from the marine tourism sector and improve sustainability. The code of conduct is a set
of 15 points designed to tackle the most common and detrimental effects of SCUBA diving and snorkelling
activities on the habitat in which they operate.
EDUCATION PROGRAMS
As part of our ongoing goal to ensure our Ocean Planet remain a sustainable environment for future
generations, we hired a marine biologist to create workshops on various subjects which we digitalise and
place online on our edu.ceningandivers.com platform and also deliver at our PADI ECO Resort. Prior to
arrival or while staying at our resort, our guests can learn about PADI AWARE Specialties, attend a Manta,
turtles, reef and marine life or Mola workshops, and access information on Green Fins to help them better
understand the impact we have on the local environment, reef and ocean. From our conservation-focus
arrival brie
fi
ng, our workshops to our Green Fins morning boat brie
fi
ngs, we aim to share our knowledge and
passion with our divers.
REFILLABLE BOTTLES AND WATER STATIONS
We provide free drinking water to our guests with re
fi
llable, recycled, glass bottles as opposed to plastic-
bottled water. We have several water stations throughout our dive resort and on our boats for our guests to
re
fi
ll their own personal bottles.

20. Eco Initiatives Ceningan Divers Has Put In Place
ELIMINATED SINGLE USE PLASTIC PRODUCTS
One of the leading global issues is the increasing amount of plastic pollution in our oceans. In an
ongoing effort to eliminate such waste, we vowed to not use plastic straws or single use plastic
products at our eco resort and dive operation. Instead we serve our juices and cocktails with a
stainless steel straw. We pack our food in our kitchen and snacks for our boats in reusable containers.
We do not offer single use shampoo or soaps in our eco resort. Instead we provide organic body soap
from dispensers and we sell organic shampoo to guests looking for alternative options.
REEF-SAFE SUN PROTECTION
Our eco-friendly dive resort put in place a policy allowing guests to only use reef safe sun protection.
We sell a suitable, locally produced cream made with Illipe butter. Guests are not allowed to use toxic
sun protection products on our boats, pool and at the resort. Educational material on the impact of
chemical on get reef and ocean is made available in our brie
fi
ng area. Guests can use alternative sun
protections to ensure they do not sunburn while out enjoying their water sport activities.
ISLAND CLEANING INITIATIVE
We host weekly Ceningan Trash Hero cleanups. Our team along with volunteers from around the
globe take an hour each each week to pickup rubbish from the beaches, mangroves, streets and
fi
elds
of Nusa Ceningan in an effort to keep the island clean. As part of this initiative, we provide free
education and share information with other likeminded people.

22. Eco Initiatives Ceningan Divers Has Put In Place
ECO RECYCLING, UPCYCLING AND WASTE MANAGEMENT
At the resort we have separate rubbish and recycling stations, this allows us to separate
recyclable material such as plastic, cardboard, glass and other materials. We have several
composting areas around the resort which help eliminate organic waste from our
rubbish. We also have bio septic toilets in our bungalows and use the grey water in our
garden.
PRODUCT SOURCING
Our restaurant and bar use ingredients which we source from sustainable, organic vendors
or local distributors. Our aim in working with fair trade producers and organic farmers is to
provide our guests with healthy options which aren’t always easily accessible when
traveling. Looking towards the future, we also planted several fruit trees when we opened
our resort in 2015. We are always looking at other options to expend our garden.
MANGROVE NURSERY
We launched a Mangrove Nursery at our resort in 2018. Our goals with this program is in
two folds: Mangroves play an important role in protecting our coastlines and our reefs. This
also help with our goal to become a carbon negative operation and will help reduce our
overall carbon output.

24. Eco Initiatives Ceningan Divers Has Put In Place
WATER CONSERVATION
Fresh water on Nusa Ceningan and in Bali is particularly scarce. That is why we use the
grey water from our bio-septic toilets to water our garden. We are building a 68,000 litres
ground reservoir to catch rain water, we will use this water for our dive pool and to water our
garden during the dry season.
ORGANIC CLEANING PRODUCTS
We source organic products for cleaning so as not to pollute our eco-system. Our staff has
been trained to conserve energy, in keeping electricity and water consumption and non-
organic waste to a minimum.
REEF MONITORING AND CONSERVATION PROGRAMS
Ceningan Divers is working in partnership with various community partners around Nusa
Penida, Nusa Lembongan, Nusa Ceningan and Bali to ensure our local reefs remain healthy
and pristine. We participate in annual Coralwatch and reef monitoring programs. Our team
is composed of passionate educators and Conservation Divers who dedicate their time and
energy to share their love of our Ocean Planet. We take part in community coral
transplantation initiative as well as other activities aim to preserve the beauty of our Marine
Protected Area.

25. Ceningan Divers was recognized by the United Nations Environment Programs, The
World Reef Foundation, the Coral Triangle Centre, Green Fins, and UW360 Magazine in
2018 and 2019, we were awarded The Dive Operator of the Year Award and Dive Resort
of the Year Award at ADEX in Singapore. We currently rank #1 on the Green Fins Top-ten
Global Dive Operators and achieved a zero-score in our 2024 annual assessment.
Multi-Award-Winning Dive Resort

28. The answer to the “ultimate question”?
What is the meaning of life, the universe, and everything?
Questions?