As cause driven as it is hospitable, Seoul's Hotel Cappuccino encourages guests to consider their environmental impact.

Not many luxury hotels place active social responsibility at the core of their company policy. In fact, it could be argued that they’d be amongst the last establishments cited in this regard.

Hotel Cappuccino, situated in Seoul, bills itself as a lifestyle destination, thereby transcending the accepted idea of how a hotel should function. Though profit isn’t surrendered entirely in the pursuit of a sustainable idyll, the basic tenets of the idea were established before the name of the hotel was even decided upon.

Hotel Cappuccino has skillfully woven a shared value scheme into its everyday practices. The program is an intuitive and entirely natural method of combatting the issue of unwanted wastage while also encouraging guests to consider their environmental impact.

An example of this is the E&G Box (present in each of the 141 rooms) that contains a typical array of hotel amenities, such as towels, shampoo and new sheets. If, after two days these items remain untouched, the hotel rewards the guests in that room with an Angel Voucher, which can then be exchanged for a donation to Water.org (a charity dedicated tackling the global water crisis) or a drink.

Guests who choose to stay in Hotel Cappuccino, you suspect, will already be willing to acquiesce to the shared idea. But by creating implicit opportunities for participation in their eco-friendly scheme (refillable toiletry dispensers, a café that donates a percentage of its takings to charities) even those who aren’t as concerned will contribute proportionately.