Jake Kheel - Secrets Behind the Caribbean's Most Innovative Resort

[00:00:10] Christy: Welcome to Green Champions.

[00:00:11] Dominique: Thanks for joining us in a conversation with real people sharing sustainability success stories.

[00:00:16] Christy: This podcast is a platform for green champions to share their stories and plant new ideas. I'm Christy.

[00:00:21] Dominique: And I'm Dominique.

[00:00:21] Christy: We're back with Jake Kheel, Vice President of sustainability at Grupo Puntacana, a leader in the sustainable tourism industry. You can listen to last week's episode to learn more about Jake's personal journey and what led him to being a sustainability strategist, author, and award-winning documentary filmmaker. Today we're diving back into how Jake has championed sustainable tourism. Jake, welcome back.

[00:00:44] Jake: Thanks so much. Great to be here.

[00:00:46] Dominique: Jake, I know last time we got to talk about how you first found yourself in the Dominican Republic,But remind some who'd missed that episode, just how you got started working there.

[00:00:55] Jake: So I've been in Puntacana in the Dominican Republic for 21 years, and I came down here as director of environment for a resort company. And, basically I thought, as a good solid environmentalist and I was committed in protecting the environment, And, when I got here, we had this very real epiphany that we needed to engage more with the private sector and with business and find ways to have them pull their weight in sustainability. As opposed to just suing them and telling 'em what they can't do and telling them how they could do better, really show them how to do it better and how to do it from the inside out.

And last time we also got to hear a little bit of a day in the life,what does a VP of sustainability do in the tourism industry? What are things you're dealing with and talking about?

I'd say, I sort of put it in two categories. One is problem solving. So it's finding solutions or proposing solutions or implementing solutions to some of these really complex challenges that we face on the environmental and sort of social side but that makes sense for the resort, so problem solving things like garbage, when we have, sargassum issues. Are there things we can do better with water?

Are there things we can do better with the way we're reforesting areas and using landscaping and putting native plants around the property. So that's sort of the problem solving side. So a lot of times in a company, people are very focused on what they're doing and they don't necessarily veer out of the way, and so they might miss that they're having an environmental impact.

Or they might have time or might not perceive that they have time to contribute to a solution. So I'm there to try and add ideas and try and get things that work both for the environment and for the company. And then I'd say on the other side, I sort of call it troublemaking. And it's basically finding things that are wrong that could be fixed that nobody else is looking at, and trying to find ways to do that.

So, sometimes people don't necessarily want your help and you have to convince them that it's a great idea and that it's gonna be good for them too. I try and be very collaborative in the approach. These are my colleagues. A lot of people are my friends. They're people that I like being around, so I'm not trying to come in here and tell 'em what to do. And many of them are extremely good at their jobs and they know how to do their jobs way better than I do.

And so it's just bringing new ideas or maybe a new perspective on ways that their job could also be beneficial for the local environment. So as more or less, I find where the buckets fall. And then for my team, I'm basically the facilitator. It's just making sure things are functioning, we have the resources we need. There's not any blockages that could be kept out of the way that people, feel like they're engaged in the work they're doing. So I try to be big on delegation, big on giving people empowerment and letting them solve their problems and then helping them as they need to, and just being really clear on what the mission is. 

[00:03:38] gc-5-19-jake: is

[00:03:38] Christy: Have these challenges, these struggles, these problems, are they different than when you first started or some of them the same?

And the question along with that is, it might be a different environmental issue or maybe it's the same one, but is there some sort of overarching issue that you're trying, systemic problem, maybe, that you're still seeing? I'm trying to get an idea of what may be similar to when you got there in those struggles, and maybe what's changed since then that you've had a positive impact on?

[00:04:06] Jake: I 

think what's changed in the time that I've been here are just the way that sort of these global factors that we worry about, like climate change are now becoming real for us in real time. These are no longer sort of theoretical things happening. We have this seaweed issue, and it's been happening now for 15 years. It was for six years while I was working here, never saw a flake of sargassum seaweed on our beaches. And now it's a major issue that we confront and put a lot of effort into to managing.

And this is really a global change, like the Great Atlantic Sargassum Belt is originating in West Africa, traveling past South America and the Orinoco and the Amazon Rivers, and ending up in the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico and South Florida. And this is just a huge global phenomenon. The hurricane events we face nowadays are generally more frequent on most years. And they escalate faster, they change faster. So you could have a tropical storm that becomes a category one that in less than 48 hours becomes category five, and that's happening with greater frequency.

So these are new kinds of challenges that we were not thinking about maybe 10, 15 years ago and it's really making us have to adapt. a lot of people when they're working on climate change are still looking at how do we reduce carbon footprints? How do we change to new fuel sources? How do we reforest, how do we mitigate the impact of climate change and reduce the amount that's happening.

For folks in the Caribbean and coastal communities, it's now how do we adapt to this 'cause this is what we're facing right now. Out of the last five years, we had three years of the highest temperatures that we've heard of in the Caribbean. we had weeks at a time that were above 30 degrees Celsius of the Caribbean Sea, which is unheard of.

You might see that spike like a day or two. Now it's weeks at a time. So, we're really having to adapt to these kind of global challenges and It's hard because it's not like the local challenges went away. They still have all the local challenges and all the political challenges and this kind of friction between government and private sector and protecting the environment. But now you have these kind of bigger things to worry about. So I think it's become more complex. It's become more concerning and I think, you, know, now we need more than ever to be pulling in the same direction. 

Maybe it would be helpful to listeners to understand exactly what is it and why is it a problem. Yeah. The reason people come into the Caribbean, 'cause the color of the ocean is, its cover of the sea is beautiful. It's like turquoise, it's green, it's blue, it's crystal clear and that's the conditions you need to have healthy coral reefs. And coral reefs are a big attraction for people coming into the Caribbean and they have been for a really long time.

People like scuba diving, they like being out in boats and sailboats and catamarans and out and exploring around the reef. People fish and consume fish coming off the reef. So there's just all these activities around the reef and there's this really important interaction with the reef and the beach.

 we wouldn't have these beautiful white sand beaches if we didn't have coral reefs in the Caribbean. So when you have this floating seaweed that just comes in massive quantities and then, can land on your beaches and it contaminate the beaches. It can, cause fish to die, it can cover the coral reefs. It produces odors that are not desirable, and makes it unattractive to get in the water 'cause people don't wanna go stepping over the seaweed to get into the water.

So, it's a huge challenge, economically, the cost of mitigating it, the cost of cleaning it up. The cost of preventing it from getting to the shore, the cost of managing it, all the R&D to try and turn it into something. So it's incredible amounts of resources have to be dedicated to this.

It's a huge impact on the image of the region. And so it's a huge significant threat. And then you have coral reefs, which have all these other types of threats over fishing and sedimentation and ocean temperatures that are not favorable for the survival of the corals and invasive species.

You have all these things that impact corals, and so this is just one more thing that threaten our coral reef. So, it's definitely something to be thoughtful about and concerned about. But, I don't wanna only dwell on like the big threats. Like there's lots of things we're doing where we're showing serious progress.

Management of solid waste, I think is a really good example of one that, the Dominican Republic has really pushed the envelope moving this forward. And I think there's lots of positive signs too, and so I don't wanna tell people, "Hey, don't come to the Caribbean. It's, it's a..."

[00:08:30] Dominique: I don't think you've sent that message at all. Don't worry. But I actually was just gonna ask 

you mentioned it the last time, this solid waste management and composting project probably is the one that you're enjoying quite a bit right now, and you love how hands on it is. Can you tell us what it is that you're doing and how you're doing it?

[00:08:48] Jake: Yeah. Well the tourism industry is basically like any city, where about 50% of the waste people generate is organic. And so you can go crazy recycling and separating plastics and making sure they either end up in some kind of recycling process or some kind of useful industry or landfill properly. But ultimately, 50% of that stuff still needs a good home. And so the organic waste, the fastest onboarding through a solution is composting. It's the lowest cost, it's the most accessible technology, doesn't require really high levels of expertise. You can kind of do it in a backyard scale, at a community scale, or even industrial scale.

And so we've bet quite a bit on that being a major solution for our waste needs. And so as a resort, we generate 25 tons of garbage a day between arriving airplanes, and we own and operate the airport, so huge air traffic. Between three hotel properties and soon four, right on property, about 2000 residences, plus 3000 of our own employees, plus a few other businesses that operate within the resort or nearby in the resort that are, probably a couple other thousand employees. We manage all of their waste. 

[00:10:01] Dominique: It's a lot of material.

[00:10:02] Jake: It's 25 tons a day, basically on average. So if you wanna talk about solving that, you probably have to deal with the organics at some point. And then what I find just so fascinating about managing organic waste is if you do it well, you're just hitting a number of big issues all at once, The leachate coming out of a landfill that's contaminating groundwater, methane gas and greenhouse gases coming off a landfill that are causing climate change, or can cut in developing countries like Dominican Republic.

A lot of times you catch on fire and you literally have a fire in the landfill. Pests and disease, all these other things. And then we're really regenerating the soil by creating compost, so it's an amazingly elegant solution to a really complicated problem. And it's just fascinating how it's grown over the years to now there's just a lot of ways to do it. There's a lot of smart people working on it. There's new technologies coming online. There's lots of really cool toys that we got to see at the USCC, the US Compost Council Conference, and it's just been a really enlightening learning experience to learn like, yeah, this is one of these big, huge environmental challenges that we can actually take on and solve.

[00:11:08] Dominique: And I know last time you also talked about an element of how you view your role in Puntacana is making this commonplace, you want the way that you're managing the community and nature to be the way that we think about that as the standard. And I'm paraphrasing a little bit, but when thinking about composting and your waste management practices, I think what I'm so curious for how possible and beautiful of an ecosystem you can create, as opposed to maybe any of the misconceptions that folks might have. And you've really painted how well that's working for you now at this well established, I mean, you're collecting material from other organizations and that is so, so amazing.

Can you tell us how you got started? what did day one look like? For example, if someone's listening in and looking to mirror what you're doing, but there's some friction to figure out how to even begin.

[00:11:58] Jake: at the beginning of the show, I think you talked about how sustainability champions and their successes. I think more important for us has been the failures, and that's where the big learning has happened, and we've had lots of those. And I got here with the idea that the, organic waste was gonna be important.

 the resort, at that time, we were producing 10 tons a day, which is like nothing compared to it now, less than half. So how are we gonna manage all this organic waste? And I was coming from New York City, and there was a foundation there that had, they were promoting, doing worm composting in your apartment.

And so I literally had worms in my apartment in New York City. So I got here, I was like, oh, it's just gonna be so easy. It was just bring worms down and we'll get them the eating all these garbage and fix that problem. It turned out to be quite a bit more complicated than that, it didn't go so well at first.

We still do worm composting nowadays, but we've gotten into more kind of technified industrial scale types of composting. But, really, it was just one of the ways to manage this at the lowest cost possible. And we started doing experiments at a really small scale through our foundation. We brought down different partners, we involved different aspects of the resort. And now, just pure hardheadedness and perseverance, 20 something years later, we now have an industrial compost plant. We also still have our worm composting. We do manure composting there. We've got aerated static piles.

We've got all these different techniques that we've learned over the years. And you'd be amazed, just talking about it for as long as I have and being this passionate about it, it is now much more common for people to talk about compost as a real thing in the Dominican Republic.. Back when I got here, they were like, "You're doing what now? Like, why are you doing this? What is the point?" Now, there are companies dedicated doing compost. There are lots of people doing it at home or at work or trying to get their businesses doing it. We have conversations with some of the biggest companies at Dominican Republic doing it. Advised a company that is looking at, in building out a full industrial scale composting facility and fertilizer production operation.

So 

[00:13:52] gc-5-19-jake: So, 

[00:13:53] Jake: it's just amazing that you keep at something and you might be too early on it, but eventually it comes around and people start to realize, yeah, why don't we do something about this particular problem, it's an island. You don't have unlimited space. Eventually you run out of place to landfill. You get run out of rivers that are clean that you can use to drink. You run out of aquifers that provide drinking water because they become contaminated. During the pandemic, the big dump in Santo Domingo caught fire. And then all that smoke got pushed into the city. So people were in the city, in their apartments, surrounded by the outcome of their poor management of their wastes.

So, raised a lot of awareness in the country and I feel like people have come around on the idea of compost not being this kind of hippie thing you do in your backyard, but really as a viable business and a viable solution to a major challenge that we face.

[00:14:40] Dominique: Yeah, and your contribution to the community just sounds so, so impactful. You're bringing folks together, offering resources, being a connector. I was curious to ask how you engaged the community in your projects, but you already kind of painted that for us, and have now shown how you've created a model that others are now like, huh, maybe we should be part of that too.

But you've also see, it seems like you're seeking ways for collaboration in everything that you do. Are there any notable collaborations in local environment that stands out to you?

[00:15:12] Jake: Well, on continuing a little bit talk about garbage. If I found that, now that I have kids, it's so obvious to me. When I didn't have kids, I never really believed in the idea of environmental education. I thought it was important, but I also thought you needed to have the kind of infrastructure and the solutions in the background.

You couldn't just tell people what needed to be done and then you didn't have the ability to do it. So you're just telling them what was wrong. So I always believe we always had to create kind of the right situation and the right infrastructure to solve, for example, garbage problem.

But now, I have kids and they come home with stuff all the time, and you realize that your kids are evangelizers, The kids are picking up ideas and they're coming and convincing you. And so we've made it a big emphasis to really get in the school and bring some of our messages, especially about waste management, 'cause something they can really have a hands-on impact.

So we have collection stations. We're starting a student club led composting initiative in the school. To my CEO's infinite annoyance, who wants our school to really be pushing entrepreneurship and we do an entrepreneurship fair every year, I'd say about a quarter or a half of the projects coming out of there are environmental or sustainability projects.

And he's thinking, what about the businesses that can make money in the future? we want these kids, get into technology. Stop messing with sargassum and garbage, But I think it's a very important strategy to get these kids on board. I mean, if you convince the kids to separate their waste or convince the kids to do compost at home, or that birds are cool or we need coral reefs.

A lot of times the parents are like, what is that person talking about? They're like, oh, my colleague actually works on this and I can't believe I haven't been paying attention to 'em all these years and my kids are now telling me. So 

[00:16:48] gc-5-19-jake: So I 

[00:16:49] Jake: I think it's been really strategic. I've really come around on the idea of environmental education now.

I think it's a key pillar of what we're doing. Whereas before I always thought it was a little bit window dressing. It's okay, yeah, we gotta do the environmental education 'cause everybody says you have to. But now I think it's a really critical piece of implementing some of the strategies that we have.

[00:17:07] Dominique: Yeah. And that story just speaks volumes about how important that is to young people in your community. For all their ideas to be environmentally rooted, that feels loud.

[00:17:17] Jake: Yeah. And it's impactful, I advised a couple different groups of young kids that had projects and they come to us and they say, here, what I want to do and what are you working on? we have a laboratory, I have lots of really smart scientists that work with us.

I can put them in touch with people and be like, oh, that's a really cool idea that you're working on. Have you thought about it this way? And you should talk to this person. For example, in Sargassum we had eight different universities working on valorization projects where they turned sargassum into different products or into energy or into soils and fertilizers.

And so these kids were working on a project for their entrepreneurship fair, and I brought them to the conferences like, "Come check this out. You guys are gonna blow it away." I mean, they're listening to PhDs and some professors talk deep science on them. But, they get exposed to something that's really cool, and they learn a different layer of the thing that they were thinking about before.

And maybe they were just thinking, oh, well, making jewelry out of seaweed. Now all of a sudden, they've got a whole other background on this issue. 

[00:18:08] gc-5-19-jake: issue 

[00:18:09] Christy: Jake, I have to give a shout out to Leo, and I'm bringing up Leo because we were talking about the community, you're talking about education, and I was blown away by the Ridgeway Hawk project. Tell us about Leo and what he does for the community and students 

[00:18:26] Jake: So we've been working on the conservation of the Ridgeway's Hawk. It's an endemic hawk species here in the DR. So it's only found on the island of Hispaniola. And at one point the population had been reduced to about 200 pairs. So very, very highly threatened hawk species. And we got in touch with the Peregrine fund who was studying the issues and what was happening with the hawk, and said, if the hawk is being persecuted by humans and it's population range has been reduced to this one national park where it's at high risk of disease or storm events or anything, what if we just introduced a few of 'em here in Puntacana? It's a resort. Nobody's gonna shoot 'em. That's not what people, no agriculture here and maybe we can create a second population.

And so it was a crazy idea that our CEO at the time Frank Rainieri had, I even doubted it. I was like, I'm sure this is like a crazy idea there. And they laughed Me outta the building. And they went, yeah, that sounds like a good idea. Can we bring a couple over and we'll check it out?

And so we did some controlled reintroductions. And we went from three birds the first year. We now have over 150 birds on property and in the region of Puntacana. 

[00:19:30] gc-5-19-jake: Punta Cana. 

[00:19:31] Jake: This year we have close to 30 breeding pairs. So we now have our own breeding population that's formed. I mean, in the early part of the project, we reintroduced quite a few hawks to build up this population and have genetic diversity of the hawks.

So along the way as we started building up this population and the project got better known and we had other sites that we began working with, with the Peregrine fund, we started receiving birds that were either injured or had been in captivity or somebody was trying to sell it as food or had been hit by a car or anything that happened to these birds.

And so we received a few of them. We were able to rehab them and release them. But over the years there was quite a few birds that we received and we were not able to release for different reasons. They become habituated to people or they were just too injured to fly and go hunt for themselves.

And so we formed an Ambassador Hawk program. So Leo is one of these hawks that was either really sick or habituated, or in captivity that is now under our care. And what we do is they become these really ambassadors to wildlife. We take them to schools, we take them into community where they have issues with hawk predation where it's eating their baby chickens. And so we go and talk to the local community, introduce them to a hawk, close up and actually put a hawk on their arm and so they can see what it's like to be around these animals and learn more about them and why they're so special. And so it becomes a really powerful message, and the same in schools, 

You're bringing a hawk, it's very different than seeing a bird through binoculars and seeing a red-tailed hawk, which is, a, two feet tall or foot and a half tall perched on your arm. And you just see these penetrating eyes, these birds have it. So it's really impactful experience for a lot of people.

And so that's what Leo does. That's his job. Here, we take care of him. All of the hawks we have, I think we have five under our care now, they get exercise, they get flown, they get brought organic food, organic grown lab rats. So these are well cared for animals. They have space.

They get literally looked at day and night. And, they get cared for and they become really potent ambassadors to our project and to conservation of birds. So it's something I'm super passionate about. I'm fortunate to be around the project all the time, and I get to kind of share that with our community.

[00:21:45] Dominique: I can't wait to go look up pictures of Leo or after this. I'm just sitting here curious and can't wait to go see what I can find. 

[00:21:54] Jake: Yeah. We literally have homeowners that'll call me and be like, I've got some guests over. is there a chance we could do a program with Leo? We'd love to introduce them to our guests. So we've had dinner parties where Leo shows up. So it's, it's really cool.

[00:22:05] Dominique: I am impressed with how much we got to hear about all your projects, knowing how much we wanna dig into each one. And I'm sure, I know we could talk forever, but we got limited time here. Thank you so much for chatting with us, and sharing so much detail about the different problems you're addressing and how you're addressing them.

I think you shared so many learnings for us to take away. How can continue learning about your programs?

[00:22:28] Jake: So, a good channel Instagram, @jakekheel. I'm on there doing some videos a lot of times about compost. It's I dunno what I talking about the most, but we share a lot of, some of the work that we're doing here in Puntacana. 

[00:22:39] gc-5-19-jake: Cana. 

[00:22:40] Jake: I've also written a book, Waking the Sleeping Giant. You can learn about some of the experiences here in Puntacana through the lens of sustainability, and how it's such an important piece of our business of tourism.

And apart from that, hopefully I'll get invited to more wonderful podcasts like this and can continue sharing some of these stories. 

[00:22:58] Dominique: Hey, if you ever wanna come back, options open.

[00:23:01] Jake: Fantastic. 

[00:23:02] Christy: I would just encourage anyone that might be going to visit, take time out, go to the ecological reserve, go to the sustainability center, the Marine Center. See the work that folks are doing here, and, get a sense of place as well, while having a great time.

[00:23:18] Dominique: Well, thanks Jake.

[00:23:19] Jake: Thanks so much.

[00:23:20] Dominique: Each guest brings a different approach to sustainability, and we're here to highlight the people doing the work that inspires others because climate action takes many forms. 

[00:23:27] Christy: As always, you can find all of our episodes and support the show at thegreenchampions.com. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, subscribe, and leave us a review on your favorite podcast platform. Stay connected with us on LinkedIn and Instagram, @greenchampionspod. Our music is by Zayn Dweik.

Thanks for listening to Green Champions. We'll be back next time with another sustainability success story. 

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