Staying in the Sassi di Matera means immersing yourself in a place that is unique in the world, where every stone tells centuries of history and every choice — even the smallest — becomes part of an authentic experience. It is in this spirit that L’Antica Conceria has permanently eliminated plastic water bottles from the property, adopting a solution more consistent with the values that guide responsible hospitality: zero-kilometre water, served in glass bottles that are sanitised and reused with every change of guest.
A concrete choice, not a symbolic one. Tourism generates enormous quantities of single-use packaging waste every year, and plastic bottles are one of the heaviest contributors. In a context of high tourist footfall like Matera’s — especially during the summer months — the risk of waste ending up in the environment is real. Switching to reusable glass means breaking this cycle: no more disposability, no more plastic ending up in landfill after a single use.
What makes all this possible is Grohe Blue technology: a water filtration system that removes chlorine, reduces limescale and delivers water with a purer, more pleasant taste — ideal for drinking and better for the body. The source is the local mains supply from Acquedotto Lucano, checked and verified daily: water from the local area, zero-kilometre, without the environmental cost of bottled transport. An approach that concretely reduces plastic consumption, the CO₂ emissions linked to logistics, and the property’s overall environmental impact.
Staying in the Sassi di Matera with something extra: green tourism that rewards those who choose well
The hospitality sector is undergoing a profound transformation. Today’s travellers are increasingly discerning: they choose properties not only for comfort or location, but also for the values those properties genuinely put into practice. Offering filtered water using quality technology, in reusable glass bottles, sourced from the local mains supply, is not just an environmental gesture — it is a choice of consistency between what a property promises and what it actually does.
This is exactly the kind of approach that tools such as the Sustainable Value Index measure and promote: a model that assesses organisations’ real impact across four dimensions — environmental, social, business and digital — and which, within the environmental component, explicitly includes criteria such as waste management, natural resource conservation and product life cycle. Replacing single-use plastic bottles with reusable glass and zero-kilometre water responds precisely to this logic: reducing impact, not shifting it elsewhere.
Water that comes from the land, like everything else
There is a further dimension to this choice: zero-kilometre sourcing. Relying on water from the local mains supply — filtered and enhanced through the Grohe Blue system — is not only an environmental matter, but an identity-driven one too. It is a way of bringing the local area directly into the guest room, so that even a everyday act like drinking a glass of water becomes part of the experience of staying in the Sassi di Matera.
Every detail of a stay contributes to the overall narrative of a place. The choice of reusable glass and local water is not a decorative detail: it is an element that strengthens the consistency between the property’s story and its real practices. Guests who stay at L’Antica Conceria take a piece of Matera with them when they leave. From today, that glass bottle is part of that story too.
