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Amsterdam is a great destination for a sustainable trip. Photo courtesy of Shutterstock.
How to do Amsterdam the sustainable way
October 2, 2020
From eco-friendly hotels to activist galleries, Amsterdam is full of tourist experiences that prioritize sustainability and social responsibility. Here’s an itinerary for a visit that will make a positive impact
Sleep
Practically every element of the 288-room QO Amsterdam is driven by a commitment to sustainable luxury. The building, in the formerly industrial neighborhood of Amstelkwartier, features an aluminum-paneled “intelligent facade” that responds to both indoor and outdoor conditions. It traps heat in the winter and reflects sunlight in the summer, greatly reducing energy usage. The carpeting in the hotel is made from yarn recycled from fishing nets. Plus, the 21st-floor greenhouse provides vegetables, fruits and herbs for the in-house restaurant, Persijn
Eat
Amsterdam-Noord’s De Ceuvel is a former shipyard that has been redeveloped into an office park. Houseboats are even used as workspaces for artists and entrepreneurs. The Café de Ceuvel was built with salvaged materials from the Port of Amsterdam and everything on the menu is either hyper-local or sustainably produced.
Drink
Founded by two psychiatric nurses who saw the difficulty their patients had getting jobs, Brouwerij de Prael is a brewery that hires workers from underemployed populations, including the unhoused and recovering addicts. Visit this brewery or the nearby brewpub to try a bitter blond ale made with rainwater or a Belgian-style tripel.
See
Power of Art House is an artist collective that stages socially minded public art “interventions.” Some of these works are in the Acts of Artivism exhibition at the group’s gallery in Amsterdam-Oost. These exhibits includes:
- Moving People, a project that placed more than 10,000 miniature models of real-life refugees on the streets of Amsterdam to raise awareness about human migration.
- Living Aleppo, a diorama of the Syrian city annotated with stories about residents’ experiences of the country’s long-running civil war.
Buy
Every year, Amsterdam garbage boats remove more than 92,000 pounds of waste from the city’s canals. WasteBoard takes plastic bottle caps pulled from the water and upcycles them into skateboard decks. The colorful, Impressionist-style designs would make Vincent van Gogh proud.