How is Nicuesa Carbon Neutral?

Costa Rica has the goal to be carbon neutral by 2021.
Playa Nicuesa began the process to become carbon neutral in 2008, which is when we enrolled in the ENCC (National Strategy for Climate Change) to support the country’s goals. The hotel has been doing in-house analyses and purchasing carbon credits to offset our emissions since that time. The compensation of emissions was achieved through donations to FONAFIFO (the National Foundation for Forestry Financing). This organization applied the funds directly to reforestation programs on the Osa Peninsula.

In 2010, Nicuesa progressed significantly towards becoming a Carbon Neutral business. We completed step 2, an inventory and report of all greenhouse gases emitted, with the assistance of an external consulting company. A company may choose which elements of three different scopes to include in their assessment. Only scopes 1 and 3 apply to Nicuesa and we chose to include the following elements: electricity use, fuel use, employee commuting, vehicle travel, air travel for employees, guest activity trips, paper use, printing, shipping and appliance/equipment purchase. Nicuesa chose not to include emissions from international guest travel in hopes that the tools provided on our website will serve as encouragement for guests to join us in our efforts and offset their international flights, as all flights within Costa Rica are already carbon neutral.
As part of our work with the ENCC we are now identifying ways to reduce emissions in a formal climate action plan and completing a second greenhouse gas assessment. After these are complete, we will again compensate for our c02 emissions through FONAFIFO. This year rather than buying credits that will subsequently turn into reforestation efforts, as has been done in previous years, our credits will go towards protecting forests from being cut down in the first place – a process called avoided deforestation. Avoided deforestation is achieved by paying farmers or land holders to not cut down the trees on their land, or a payment for the environmental service of preserving the carbon stored in the trees and soil in a forest. Costa Rica has been a trail blazer in payments for environmental services and now has a negative deforestation rate.
Nicuesa is already carbon neutral as it offsets any emissions it may have. However, to become certified and recognized as such it must comply with the fifth and final step in the process – to be approved by the ENCC under their brand as a Carbon Neutral Business. This can only be done after they finalize and publish the criteria.

Forest & Sea Adventures

It was a nice walk to the waterfall with Camila and Joaquin from Chile. It was a lovely and quiet morning with white faced monkeys swinging by, ameivas lizards scurrying along the ground and butterfly's fluttering around us.

The best part was planting a cedar sapling in the regenerating secondary forest that leads to the primary forest surrounding the stream flowing from the waterfall, located within the Piedras Blancas National Park. Later that same day I went with these new friends on their honeymoon to snorkel in the Golfo Dulce.

With our heads immersed in the blue-green waters, we took a lot of photos of the wonderful world of the coral reefs. There was an abundance of colorful fish like rainbow fish to entertain our eyes.

It was incredible to see these two different worlds all in one day - the lush vibrant green of the lowland tropical forest and the emerald green-blue waters filled with multi-colored fish!

Ecological Blue Flag Program

Playa Nicuesa has been recognized for its commitment to a clean beach and environmental consciousness in its community by receiving the Blue Flag. Costa Rica has expanded the Ecological Blue Flag Program, which started in in Spain, to include many categories with the purpose of verifying the implementation of activities in communities and schools that contribute to the protection of water sources, forests and coastlines.

Playa Nicuesa has been participating in the beaches category of the Blue Flag Program for over a year now. To receive the Flag the hotel must test quality of drinking water as well as ocean water, coordinate beach clean ups, ensure a responsible waste management system in the community including garbage bins along the coastline, educate the community about the importance of water and other environmentally related topics and regularly inspect the coastline to ensure there are no industrial or domestic discharges.
The motivation to participate in this program came from a few employees that began to gather garbage that washed up along the beach in their free time.

Now they have expanded that initiative and have educated the community on a wide variety of topics related to water, planned beach clean ups in our own backyard as well as in several neighboring beaches. Even guests have gotten drawn into the fold by joining in on beach clean ups and learning how garbage arrives even on pristine and protected shorelines.

It was a wonderful morning with a lovely family – Kurt, Tally, TJ, Tanner, Tom, Laurie and I in the mangroves. We started by creeping up the river, pausing frequently to look at the snakes and birds along the shoreline and flying above us.

We stopped and anchored in an incredibly peaceful part of the river where we could absorb the sights and sounds more fully while eating breakfast and sipping on our coffee.

Throughout the trip we had an amazing time taking pictures, the best of which were

the grey breasted martin,

northern tree boa,

and the green heron.



Guests always comment that they feel they are entering a different world as they glide through the black and red mangroves found in Rio Esquinas observing these species.

Beach Cleanup in Puntarenitas Coinciding with the International Coastal Cleanup

On September 19th all of Nicuesa’s employees joined the Red Cross, Fire Fighters and many other local businesses to remove the growing amount of plastic bottles, Styrofoam and garbage on the island of Puntarenitas. Puntarenitas is located offshore from Golfito, (the closest town to Playa Nicuesa) and we hope to soon make it as pristine as the clean shores that we enjoy at Playa Nicuesa. Nicuesa’s Sustainability Coordinator, who organized the cleanup, also enlisted the help of Terra Nostra – an NGO focused on cleaning up Costa Rica’s rivers and beaches.
The group of around 50 volunteers collected over 7,000 plastic bottles, 5,000 pieces of Styrofoam, 900 bottle caps and much more within the span of only 4 hours. The beach resembled a dump in some places and reminded all those participating of the reasons why the three r’s are encouraged – more than 100,000 marine animals die every year as a result of getting caught in or trying to eat plastic floating in the ocean!
Due to time restraints the group had to call it a day before being able to finish. Thus, Nicuesa along with the community hopes to continue the effort in the near future. Additionally, Nicuesa is also part of the Tourism Chamber of Commerce in Golfito, which aims to clean up the city and educate people how to properly dispose of solid wastes.
September is the international month of beach clean-ups. If you go on the website of the Ocean Conservancy you can find out where there is a clean up close to you or even organize one yourself for the upcoming year!

On September 10th an ICT representative presented Nicuesa with a framed copy of the Certification in Sustainable Tourism with 4 leaves! The employees all celebrated together over a beer, each receiving their own personalized certification recognizing their hard work in achieving this goal. As the heart of Nicuesa has always revolved around sustainability, this is simply an acknowledgment that motivates us to exert more of our energies to become ever more sustainable. Thus, over the past year since we turned in the CST application we have been expanding and improving our conservation efforts as well as involvement in the community. Some of these efforts include:
- Planting of over 70 trees from our Reforestation Center by guests and staff.
- Sponsoring Yaguará, a feline conservation organization, to place cameras on Nicuesa property.
- Collaborating with MarViva, a marine conservation organization, to protect the Golfo Dulce.
- Sponsoring a folkloric dance group composed of adolescents from Puerto Jimenez.
- Providing educational materials and interactive presentations to the three students of Las Animas, the only local school in the Golfo Dulce.
Offering free English classes to all employees, including sponsoring the text books
- Continuing the fight against tuna farms in the mouth of the Golfo Dulce in collaboration with PRETOMA.

These are just a few of our outreach activities. We would love to tell you all about them and even more over a tropical fruit smoothie at Nicuesa!!

Waterfall hike- The Monkeys were on the Monkey Trail

Coming back from the waterfall, walking down the Monkey trail we heard a big noise and the tree branches breaking. We stopped completely and stood quiet paying attention to the forest to realize that it was the jungle mafia, yes the White Face Capuchin Monkeys giving us a warning: “HEY YOU GUYS! This is our territory”.

 Mike and Lisa were captivated by the scout of the group and the troop behavior. These are the smartest monkeys in the Tropical Rainforest, they are opportunists (they eat everything) and they can live up to 45 years. Capuchin Monkeys travel in packs from 6 to 8 males and as Mark and Lisa witness it, they fight to protect their territory.  

Guide: Freiman

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