The general director of Sustainability of the Coast and the Sea, Raquel Orts, today presented the 2016 Responsible Beach Bars Award, accompanied by the director of the Biodiversity Foundation, Sonia Castañeda, who promotes this initiative. The purpose of this edition has been to give visibility to the hospitality establishments on the beach through the mobilization of their own users, who have been in charge of voting through photographs taken on the premises or during the development of responsible and sustainable activities.
The winner of the 2016 Responsible Beach Bar Recognition has been the beach bar “La Glea”, located in the Alicante town of Orihuela. It is the beachfront establishment that has obtained the most votes in the application enabled by the Biodiversity Foundation through which customers, suppliers and users of the beach bars could upload images in which a sustainable element or some sustainable action or activity that was being carried out in the beach bar was portrayed. Each photograph was equivalent to one vote.
In total, there have been 26 beach bars from eleven provinces of the national territory that have participated in this Recognition, La Glea achieved 663 votes out of a total of 2,012 cast, which represents 32.95%.
DECALOGUE OF GOOD ENVIRONMENTAL PRACTICES
The establishments that have opted for the Recognition are those that offer services on the beach for drinks and food, the so-called beach bars, and that met all the requirements established in the current regulations and in the Regulatory Bases of the contest. They also had to adhere to the Decalogue of Good Environmental Practices, which was launched in 2012 by the Biodiversity Foundation in order to guide the beach bars and improve the management of space and resources, focused on various points: resource management, energy, water, product consumption, pollution and waste management, management of the occupied space, environmental education and awareness and corporate social responsibility.
Currently, nearly 700 beach establishments have adhered to the Decalogue, thus improving the management of their space and resources in a sustainable and environmentally friendly way.
To support compliance with the Decalogue, as well as the improvement of the points contained therein, and after the success of the editions of the Responsible Beach Bars, the Biodiversity Foundation launched this year the 2016 Responsible Beach Bar Award, which has consisted of a single category, that of voting through the online application.
CIGARETTE BUTT COLLECTION AND AWARENESS-RAISING ACTIONS
La Glea is located north of the port of Dehesa de Campoamor, in Orihuela Costa (Alicante). It belongs to Chiringuitos del Sol, one of the leading companies in the management and operation of Beach Services and Coastal Beach Bars throughout the national territory. Founded in 2006, Chiringuitos del Sol is the first company in its sector to be certified by the different ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 as excellent in terms of the environment.
The establishment has participated in a cigarette butt collection campaign along the coast of Orihuela, in addition to disseminating environmental awareness messages through posters. It has also continued with various actions, such as the separation of used oil and the selective separation of waste or the collection of cigarette butts, which it had been developing since 2012, when it was also the winner of the second edition of the Chiringuito Responsable Awards.
