British business magnate, billionaire, and Virgin Group founder Sir Richard Branson is a known environmentalist and an avid enjoyer of the outdoors along with the adventure that nature offers.
Along with ambitions for commercial space tourism, having conquered the hospitality industry after owning properties across the world, the 73-year-old still has environmentalism front and center in his mind.
For these reasons, Branson bought and transformed the once featureless and desolate cay in the British Virgin Islands just east of Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands in the 1970s. Originally worth $120,000, it is now a testament to the billionaire's life work and advancements in sustainability.
(Photo : User Mazzy02 via Wikimedia Commons)
The Billionaire's Self-Sustaining Paradise
Verdant hills, sunken lagoons, and beachfront watersports alongside pool pavilions are only second fiddle to Necker Island's true mainstay facilities: a giant field of over 1,200 solar panels, three 120-foot-tall wind turbines, and an underground sewage irrigation system responsible for most of the produce on Branson's private garden.
According to the Virgin Limited Edition's website, the 74-acre island can operate completely without the need for generators 90% of the time, all thanks to its battery systems and sustainable sources of energy.
Consequently, Necker Island saves "approximately 2.5 tons of carbon" from rising to the atmosphere on a day-to-day basis. CN Traveler consolidates this fact, breaking down the island's power consumption between 40% by wind, 30% by solar, and 30% by diesel.
Additionally, its water is also completely processed on-island.
For Branson, the goal is for Necker to eventually be completely self-sufficient, alongside achieving full daily carbon neutrality and producing enough energy to make other nearby islands achieve the same as well.
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A Conservationist's Heaven
The island is also responsible for the operation of a conservation/tourism effort that sees the care and showcasing of endangered lemurs and giant tortoises. These programs have also successfully promoted the reproduction of both species on the island.
Because of this, Necker is now the only habitat outside of Madagascar and the Seychelles where these specific sets of species can breed.
Branson credits his ideas and efforts to Rob Steward of the Sharkwater Foundation, whom he partnered with to completely halt the illegal shark finning operations around the British Virgin Islands, along with other wildlife specialists.
Necker Island, from its humble beginnings in the 1970s, is now at the forefront of both tourism and conservation, no small part thanks to Branson. Now, with individual bookings being opened recently, you can have the opportunity to visit Necker yourself.
For more information, click here.
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