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Responsible Travel in Prague
Before you even set foot inside Mosaic House you’ll notice all the cool art installations in front of the building. Enter the hostel and you will find modern design elements, funky artwork, friendly staff, and dozens of fellow travelers. You’ll also be surrounded by something less obvious, something you may not notice even after spending a few nights at the hostel. Underneath its friendly veneer, Mosaic House is a bad ass advocate of sustainable tourism.
Mosaic House is one of the most eco-friendly hostels in Europe. After staying there for a few days last year, and learning all the ways it was contributing to sustainable travel in Prague, it became one of our favorite hostels. We enjoyed it so much that we included it in our list of the Best Hostels in Prague.
Why is Sustainability Important?
Tourism has a huge impact on its host destination, morphing it in ways that are both highly visible and nearly impossible to spot. There are financial, cultural, and environmental repercussions that are constantly at play, long after the average tourist comes, explores, selfies themselves 800 times, and leaves. While eco-friendliness is only part of the sustainable equation, it’s an important aspect to be mindful of, especially when it comes to hotels and tour providers.
Waste is a natural byproduct of being alive. It’s just how we living creatures roll. We consume and create waste. Tourism is no different, and the waste left behind by visitors can overwhelm a host site’s ability to dispose of it. By staying in a hotel or hostel that is dedicated to reducing its waste and minimizing its environmental impact you are actively contributing to the reduction of the overall carbon footprint left behind by visitors. This is a good thing, no matter where in the world you are traveling to.
What Makes Mosaic House an Eco Friendly hostel?
The historic building Mosaic House occupies was renovated to be comfortable, aesthetically pleasing to guests, and environmentally friendly. The building has all the standard eco-friendly facets like long lasting LED energy saving light bulbs, triple layer windows to help control climate, and low flow water saving shower heads.
Eco-Friendly Design of Mosaic House
The south side of the building was built with thicker insulation to keep heat in during the winter. The building’s window blinds are controlled by a centralized computer system that raises and lowers them according to the temperature in the room. They increase sunlight (and heat) in the winter and decrease it in the summer. The building’s rooftop serves not only as a space for fantastic parties, but also for eco-friendly elements like solar panels, trees, and flower boxes. We absolutely love the idea of “green roofs“, and we want to see more of them popping up in Prague.
Eco-Friendly Certifications of Mosaic House
Mosaic house was the first in the Czech Republic to have a water recycling system, the first to achieve BREEM In-use “Excellent” certification, and the first hostel in the Czech Republic to use 100% renewable source electricity. It’s also the second in the world to have a grey water system with heat recuperation in the world.
What does all this boil down to?
The hostel has a Pontos AquaCycle System, an extensive water recycling system that filters shower and sink water. Although the filtered water is clean enough for bathing it is only used at Mosaic House for toilet flushing water and surface cleaning. The recycling system saves about 30% of water consumption and in five years has saved 4139.1 m3 of water. For reference, one cubic metric of water is what would be used for 100 flushed toilets, 10 baths, 12 showers, or the total daily water consumption for 8 people!
The grey water recycling system also recovers heat energy from the waste water of showers and sinks. The energy from this system, along with the solar panels and waste heat from cooling, is used to preheat shower and sink water.
All of their energy efficiency efforts amount to a 16% savings on heating costs, and 20% less energy consumed than a standard hotel. In a five year time period 180,000 kWh have been conserved, the amount of energy 21 apartment would use in a year.
Take a Look at Mosaic House’s Eco-Friendly Design
What Makes Mosaic House One of the Best Hostels in Prague?
In addition to making responsible travel in Prague possible, Mosaic House is also beautifully designed, has a large variety of accommodation, offers a slew of entertainment and socializing options, and is centrally located. No matter what you reason for staying at Mosaic House is, you are sure to leave happy.
To read more about Mosaic House, check out these articles:
- Five of the Best Hostels in Prague – Just a Pack
- The Best Backpacker Hostels in Prague – Mad Monkey Hostels
If you’d like to stay at Mosaic House, we recommend booking you stay through HostelWorld or Booking.com.
Want more accommodation options in Prague? Click here for a guide on where to stay in Prague for any budget.
Click here for a list of all of our Prague travel guides and articles!
Disclaimer – We have included a few handy little affiliate links in case any of our readers want to book accommodations. We receive a small commission for any sales made, without any additional cost to you, our dear reader.
Everything You Need to Know to Visit Prague!
Hi Randi and Michael,
this is a great post, love it! I don’t see it often that travelers jump into that many green and eco-friendly details! A very crucial topic for travelers to understand, thanks for that!
I visited the Mosaic House Prague as well last summer, had such a great time. In fact, it is my favorite one and the only 5 Star Hostel in town! 🙂 Stay in touch via twitter, love your posts!
Cheers, Matt