Ulagalla goes green

Ishara Jayawardane

Ulagalla, “A green resort” has entered the fray of competition in the hotel industry. Ulagalla Resort is now certified and is the only hotel in Sri Lanka to have a silver rating.

“This is an outstanding achievement by Ulagalla. Ulagalla is the brain child of senior Vice Chairman Harsha De Saram. It is really his vision that has taken Ulagalla to what it is today . I must especially thank group General Mahager Ranjan Dissabandara who has worked tirelessly to make a dream a reality. Our thanks go our resident manager Lalith De Mel who with his commitment has made this dream a reality” said Marketing General Manager Ranjaka De Mel.

The International Construction Consortium (ICC), their parent company has also won a silver for construction excellence for the year 2010. ICC has commissioned Ulagalla resort to demonstrate its responsibility to protect the environment and reduce operating costs with “Leadership in Environmental and Energy Design” (LEED) certification for the resort from the green building council of the United States. The LEED for new construction (LEED- NC) Green building rating system, provides guidance on implementing sustainability for new buildings and third party verification of the level of sustainability achieved.

Ulagalla Resort qualified for 55 credit points and eight prerequisites . The threshold limit for achieving silver being 50 points, Ulagalla resort was awarded LEED SILVER certification on December 14, 2010. “Ulagalla is a very eco friendly concept. It is a place where people can just laze around , no one can tell them what to do- what not do to” said De Mel.

Ulagalla is the first Leed Certified hotel in Sri Lanka and every five years the certification has to be renewed. The status at the beginning must be maintained – air conditioning, energy consumption, occupant comfort levels must be maintained at the original levels. So if an organization does not go for re-certification it is not going to be valued after five years.

“ For a very long time we have been trying our utmost to build and construct, keeping in mind the impact on the environment. So we are very mindful and we want to make sure the least amount of disturbance is done to the environment and also we try to use global resources because we notice that all of the raw materials used for construction in this world is depleting” said ICC Vice Chairman Harsha De Saram.