Nature is our main Supplier 2014 Sustainable Lodge in Chiloe Presented to WTTC Location We are located in Chepu, Chiloé Island, Insular Patagonia at the south of Chile. Our address is Camino a Chepu Km.13, this is at Chepu rural area, 38.5 Km SW of Ancud. Chiloe Island is located 1016 km. from Santiago and 90 km. southwest of Puerto Montt. To reach the island, you need to travel southwest from Puerto Montt towards Pargua, where you have to take the ferry across the Canal de Chacao. Ferries carry buses and cars on regular basis, between 6:30 a.m. and 12 p.m. Main activities Chepu Adventures EcoLodge offers the opportunity to experience and enjoy nature while reducing your carbon footprint from travelling, by living in a sustainable way since your arrival : paperless operation, digital check in with pinky fingerprint signature , using only rain water in bathrooms and kitchen with the use of special rain‐collectors and saving water in a well and large water tanks, solar water heaters to provide hot water for showers and kitchen, electricity provided by wind and solar energy ‐ handling lights with Domotics for higher performance, independent insulated rooms with comfortable beds and soft white linens with the aromas of nature after they have been dried out to the fresh air, and our home cuisine with organic and natural products provided by local green houses and family farming. Our main product is Kayaking at Dawn that offers our guests the experience to live the awakening of Nature close to it, at the beginning of a new day, in silence, surrounded by morning mist, sun rays reflection and the sing of birds giving thanks for a new day; while visitor kayak in the sunken forest escorted by river otters. A mystical experience! Amory Uslar & Fernando Claude, former city people who in their early fifties left the big city looking for their dream of a sustainable life. How it is funded After living all our lives in the city of Santiago (for 50 years) “working for money”, one day we decided to rescue our lives and to move to the wilderness of Chiloe to have an Eco life and live ‐without any money‐ in a sustainable way. In year 2000 we sold our house and move with our belongings to start this new project & challenge in life. After two years of a wonderful and successful experience ‐at first living from trading until our own crops were enough to feed us‐ and when our house was finished, we felt so happy and confident of our lives that we decided to get some “green money” to buy other things we couldn´t produce. We decided then to share our experience in a touristic project and this was the origin of Chepu Adventures Eco Lodge a true sustainable lodge in Chile. Living in a sustainable way is not so simple as though the wind, sun and rain are free and unlimited, natural resources are not always available when you need them, so it is very important to manage them properly and this is something we have learned through our experience since 2002. To keep a sustainable operation for the two of us was somehow easy, but to keep a sustainable operation with guests was another big challenge, in order to make them aware of water and energy consumption and to find the way and inspire them and to make them change their “city habits” into a sustainable conduct. After three years of a trial and error operation, with the help of our guests and their opinions we found the harmonic an innovative solution. The first step was to establish the concept of Eco‐Limits (max amount of water & energy) guests can use during their stay. Eco Limits vary depending on sun, wind, water & reservoirs, season and amount of guests in the lodge. This is to keep our lodge in sustainable operation. These limits will vary depending the hotel, lodge, etc. At Chepu Adventures EcoLodge we can only host twelve passengers in our four Eco Rooms, so detailed information for guests on water and energy consumption is required for a sustainable operation so we designed a powerful tool for this purpose: Water and Energy Management System ‐ Tool to reduce water & energy consumption in tourism industry and in general. Water conservation is a 'hot topic' in tourism, and in certain parts of the world the water footprint presents a great challenge. Chepu Adventures Eco Lodge, located at Chepu, Chiloe Island, Insular Patagonia, in the south of Chile, has developed a water & energy conservation project. At the Eco Lodge, out of the grid (water comes entirely from rainwater recovery and energy from wind and sun), this innovative system was designed, financed and developed by Chepu Adventures, step by step with help of volunteers and comments from our guests. The system consists in showing this information in a 7” tablet screen in each eco room, which displays two virtual dials, with water and energy consumption to show eco limits in a different color. A third dial will be added in the near future to show their individual Carbon Footprint. We have sensors in every single water and electric source, as well as temperature controllers all connected in a special wi‐ fi net. Individual and total information is available to everybody in a screen at our main hall, where guests can see general and individual energy and water production &/or consumption. Detailed information makes people aware and also willing to keep Eco Limits and a friendly eco behavior. All monitored information is kept as part of our statistics, and available to each customer with their individual information at the end of their stay. This information allows guests to learn how to keep their savings at home and continue with the eco practices and eco behaviour and discuss or compare them with friends & family. In the future, this detailed consumption information will be included in the paperless form with final account given to our guests. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HWgz7qjrr0 When passengers leave the EcoLodge, if they have remained within the ECO‐limits and with low consumption rates they will be “rewarded” by Chepu Adventures EcoLodge, planting on their behalf a new tree in an offset carbon footprint project in the Chilean Patagonia. Using this innovative solution at our EcoLodge has demonstrated dramatic savings of water and energy, allowing Chepu Adventures to stay within sustainability limits day after day. Today the ratio of water usage per passenger is 80 litres per day. Before this innovation water use was approximately of 500 litres per day per Eco room. The best of all has been to see our customers happy and with the best intention to continue saving water while travelling and at home. All the system is based in a special software and Wi‐fi net that reads and sends the information of water and energy sensors placed in every unit of the Lodge. This information is processed in a Central computer where a Data base is fed and the information sent back to the different tablets in each eco room connected to this net. In a near future, sensors will be included in each unit to monitor presence and turn on/off lights, equipments and heaters depending on time of the day, opening and closing curtains including dimmers to save energy. All of our water is collected from the rain and filtered in the soil with an innovative catching system that keeps the water fresh and clean. We store water in tanks over a hill to keep constant water feeding in case of a pump failure. To pump water into the tanks we use wind energy so saving water also is a way to save energy. Our beds are equipped with down comforters and electric blankets (for lower energy consumption) for a warm stay so some guests prefer to save energy during the night, not turning on the electric heater. Rooms are insulated with windows to harvest heat from the sun and keep it inside as long as possible (thermal efficiency). Regarding illumination all our lamps are led technology and electric outlets as well as lamps are controlled by the central computer with Domotics software that shut off the energy during the day to harvest all available energy from the sun and the wind. This is a real sustainable solution for many Hotels, lodging, homes etc in which water and energy consumptions can be monitored. This system can be applied everywhere making big contributions to save natural resources for a better and sustainable world, just making people aware of their own water and energy consumption. Guests leave the lodge equipped with the knowledge they need to save more water and energy & money when they go home. At Chepu Adventures EcoLodge passengers can effectively reduce their Travel Carbon Footprint by staying with us in comparison with a traditional on grid hotel. Our sustainable operation reduces their/our WATER and ENERGY CONSUMPTION, in a real way as our Lodge only works with water collected from the rain and energy produced by wind and sun, so all the energy saved comes from nature. Also we plant a tree per each responsible guest in different carbon offset projects, reducing their travel carbon footprint. This is a Win‐Win relation for guests and our lodge. Establishing Eco Limits for each passenger and keeping only a reduced amount of people in our lodge, has many advantages: At the end of the stay passengers will: Become aware of the real meaning and positive consequences of an eco‐behavior.