CONSCIOUS CONSUMPTION: Vegging out at Ovolo

Never fear, if mom isn’t around to order you to eat your veggies, servers at Ovolo Hotel properties in Australia and Hong Kong definitely will, as all restaurants and bars belonging to the Hong Kong-based hospitality company have gone completely vegetarian.

The unique experiment – part of an initiative dubbed “The Year of the Veg” – was launched on World Vegetarian Day Oct. 1 and will be in effect for a full year at Ovolo properties in Canberra, Brisbane, and Sydney, as well as Hong Kong.

The company, which says it is committed to continuously finding ways to further reduce its environmental footprint, had previously introduced Australia and New Zealand’s first vegan hotel restaurant, Alibi Bar & Kitchen, at the Ovolo Woolloomooloo in Sydney, as well as Hong Kong’s first vegetarian hotel restaurant at the Ovolo Southside.

“Dining out and enjoying tasty food and wine with great company is one of life’s simplest pleasures,” says Ovolo’s Founder and CEO Girish Jhunjhnuwala. “We want to be conscious about what we are consuming and practice environmental sustainability as best as we can, as this leads to a larger impact on humanity, not just the environment.”

Other eco-friendly initiatives implemented by the hotel collection in the past year include elimination of all single-use plastic bathroom amenities and making use of re-fillable, tamper-free pump bottles that are HDPE recyclable. In addition to this, Ovolo had previously eliminated single-use plastic straws, introduced reusable woven bags for slippers, and moved to using biodegradable materials in all laundry bags and packaging across all properties in its portfolio.

The family-owned Ovolo Group operates four hotels and three restaurants in Hong Kong, and seven hotels and five restaurants across Australia. There are also four properties in the By Ovolo Collective, with another to come in Bali later this year.