Luxury Meets Sustainability: An Interview with WAE F&B

In Coversation With Deepak Panwar, CEO, WAE F&B

Can you elaborate on the partnership with The Leela Ambience Gurugram Hotel & Residences? What inspired this collaboration?

Hospitality sustainability is increasingly being defined by its commitment to reducing environmental impact across supply chains, with a particular emphasis on water and beverage management systems. WAE plays a critical role in advancing this sustainability agenda through technological innovation, material efficiency, and circular economy principles. Glass, being 100% recyclable and inert, offers a sustainable alternative to single-use plastics that dominate beverage packaging in the hospitality sector.

By providing advanced bottling solutions to The Leela Ambience Gurugram Hotel and Residences, WAE is enabling the hotel to adopt closed-loop systems — purifying, bottling, and reusing water on-site. This significantly reduces transportation-related emissions, conserves resources, and aligns operations with global sustainability frameworks such as the UN Sustainable Development Goals (notably SDG 6: Clean Water and Sanitation, and SDG 12: Responsible Consumption and Production).

This collaboration was inspired by a shared goal — luxury with a conscience. By combining WAE F&B’s engineering expertise with The Leela’s commitment to sustainability, we are ensuring that every bottle of water served on the property is pure, safe, and responsibly produced.

How does this partnership align with WAE F&B’s sustainability goals?

This collaboration directly supports our mission to eliminate single-use plastic bottles from hospitality and institutional sectors. WAE F&B’s sustainability framework revolves around creating decentralized, zero-waste water ecosystems.

What are the key features of your state-of-the-art glass bottling plant? How does the technology powering it contribute to sustainability?

WAE is a core engineering company deeply rooted in scientific research and product development. Our products are manufactured in vertically integrated plants confirming to Industry 4.0 standards and processes.

Our Glass Bottling plant solutions incorporate multiple features that address core sustainability requirements. These include zero-landfill construction and a closed-circuit water purification system that substantially minimises water wastage throughout the purification process.

Ozone dosing provides superior microbiological safety, and Alkalisation ensures that the water meets and exceeds global standards.

How will the installation of your glass bottling plant reduce plastic waste at the hotel property? Can you share expected numbers?

This implementation will enable The Leela Ambience Gurugram Hotel & Residences to eliminate approximately one million plastic bottles each year, equivalent to nearly 150 tons of plastic waste and mitigation of approximately one million tonnes of CO2 from the environment.

How will the glass bottling plant contribute to the hotel's operational efficiency?

The integration of glass bottling infrastructure elevates organizational positioning as a sustainable entity, enabling hotels to meet Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) targets while maintaining financial prudence —effectively merging sustainability imperatives with economic viability.

How will this installation enhance the guest experience at The Leela Ambience Gurugram?

Guests at five-star luxury hotels now expect sustainability to be seamlessly integrated into their overall experience—refined, authentic, and aligned with the brand’s ethos of excellence. Their expectations go beyond visible eco-friendly gestures and focus on substance, transparency, and innovation.

This shift enriches the guest experience by combining luxury, wellness, and conscious living into one seamless gesture.

What broader impact do you hope to achieve by partnering with more hospitality establishments?

WAE maintains recognition widely as an Activist enterprise. Our purpose is simple - Being Sustainable in all what we do. Our focus is on making sustainability both practical and aspirational across the hospitality industry through our research, design and product development efforts. By partnering with leading hotels, we are demonstrating that luxury and environmental consciousness can coexist effortlessly without compromising experiences and profits.

What benefits have hotels observed after adopting your solutions?

Adoption of sustainability in luxury hospitality yields quantifiable and strategic advantages across operational, financial, and reputational dimensions. Environmentally efficient technologies—such as on-site water purification and glass bottling reduce resource dependency and operational expenditure.

Concurrently, alignment with global sustainability standards enhances brand differentiation, positioning the hotel as a responsible leader within the premium segment. Empirical studies indicate that environmentally conscious practices correlate with heightened guest satisfaction, loyalty, and willingness to pay a premium for ethically aligned experiences.

What are your future plans for WAE F&B, and how do you see the company evolving in the sustainability space?

The company’s future plans are strategically aligned with advancing sustainability and circular economy principles within the hospitality sector. We aim to expand our portfolio beyond on-site glass bottling systems to offer integrated beverage solutions, encompassing responsibly sourced coffee and tea from India’s North Eastern region. This approach not only promotes traceable, ethical sourcing but also strengthens rural economies through fair-trade collaborations and agroforestry initiatives.

Technologically, the company plans to enhance automation, digital monitoring, and energy-efficient design in its bottling solutions, enabling hotels to achieve carbon neutrality in beverage operations. Research-driven innovation will focus on closed-loop water and beverage ecosystems, reducing single-use packaging and optimizing lifecycle performance.

Additionally, the company envisions partnerships with leading hospitality brands to co-create sustainable beverage experiences—where every bottle, brew, and blend reflects environmental responsibility, regional authenticity, and operational excellence. The long-term vision is to redefine beverage sustainability as a core component of luxury hospitality.

How does WAE F&B measure the success of its sustainability initiatives?

Sustainability for us is a way of life, and there is no fixed matrix or efforts to measure what we do. The success can be measured through quantifiable environmental, social, and economic outcomes. Key indicators include reductions in carbon emissions, energy and water consumption which further can be validated through scientific assessments such as life cycle analysis.

Are there any plans to expand the glass bottling plant to other locations or industries?

We have already installed over 100 plants successfully at various premium properties in India, and our efforts are not limited to offering solutions to the hospitality industry alone. We are in active discussions with leading corporate entities, SEZs, Hospitals and Government establishments. We have recently commissioned an advanced bottling plant at AIIMS, New Delhi and discussions are in advance stage pan India with major hospitals.

Our aim is to make decentralized glass bottling a mainstream sustainability solution across sectors.

RAPID FIRE ROUND

Coffee or tea – what do you prefer to start your day with?

Always coffee — strong, black, and brewed to perfection.

If a biography or biopic were to be made on you, what would be the title?

“From Bottles to Impact: The Sustainable Shift.”

Other than this, what career would you have loved to do?

Something that still blends creativity and purpose — perhaps hospitality design or brand strategy.