City of Dreams Manila held a kick off activity of the first “Soap for Hope” program in the country’s integrated resorts to strengthen its commitment to long-term sustainability of its operations through employee volunteerism, reduction of its environmental impact, and development of local communities.

With “Soap for Hope,” an award-winning global program of Diversey with hotels, the initiative aims to eliminate soap wastes from the 938 rooms of City of Dreams Manila’s luxury hotels — NÜWA, Nobu, and Hyatt – by hygienically reprocessing used soaps into new soap bars, and donate them to various charitable institutions and NGOs that the resort supports.

Diversey’s Global Director for Creating Shared Values Stefan Phang was special guest at the kick-off, along with Mesa ni Misis Founder and Soap for Hope’s partner in the Philippines, Juana Manahan Yupangco. The resort’s implementation of the “Soap for Hope” program is spearheaded by City of Dreams Manila’s Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Kevin Benning and implemented by a team composed of Human Resources, Hotels and F&B, Supply Chain and Public Relations.

“City of Dreams Manila team is delighted to support the ‘Soap for Hope’ program to help reduce waste for landfills and provide basic materials for sanitation to our adopted communities and orphanages in Paranaque and other nearby cities. This project will not be possible without our partner organizations – Diversey and Mesa Ni Misis and most importantly the unwavering enthusiasm and spirit of volunteerism of our employees. In 2017 alone, more than 4,000 employees have joined various CSR initiatives and certainly this number will continue to grow this year,” Benning stated.

During the kick-off activity, Phang assisted by Diversey staff, demonstrated to about 50 volunteer trainers how to properly recycle leftover soap bars with the use of a device custom- designed by Phang. Used soaps from the hotels are cut into cubes, soaked in a sanitizing solution, molded into 120g or 500g bricks and cut into fresh soap bars after drying.

The volunteer trainers will eventually cascade the know-how and help roll out the program to other volunteer employees. A system and schedule are in place for an efficient recycling of used soaps. The program will start with 5,000 used bars of soaps collected over the past months.

The “Soap for Hope” is a vital component and one of City of Dreams Manila’s evolving sustainability and social responsibility initiatives for environmental protection.

Other current sustainable efforts of City of Dreams Manila include the practice of vermicomposting to decompose solid food waste into natural and organic fertilizers for use on the plants within the premises of the integrated resort and an herb garden which serves as good source of fresh herbs and spices for the culinary team; coastal clean-up drives along Manila bay and various tree-planting activities in Nuvali, Laguna, and Cavite mangrove as participated by 172 company volunteers within the first half of the year.