The 25-room lodge on the shores of Lago Llanquihue becomes the first in Chile to earn B Corp certification,
and hands most of its impact story to gardeners,
weavers, and hospitality staff

AWA, the 25-room lodge on the shores of Lago Llanquihue in northern Patagonia, released its Impact Report 2026/27, along with an executive summary designed to help readers navigate the full document.

Most impact reports describe programs a company runs. This one describes a company that runs on impact.

AWA started with a passion for northern Patagonia. The Fuentes family honeymooned in Puerto Varas in 1990, kept returning for years, and eventually bought a lakeside plot on impulse. What began as a modest cabin became a formal architectural vision in 2013, and the lodge still carries that origin: a place to host, entertain, and explore northern Patagonia. Its name, drawn from the local word for water, deliberately nods to the indigenous cultures of southern Chile. AWA’s mission isn’t scale; it’s to be a global benchmark for excellence in hospitality, rooted in place.

The report itself reflects that same instinct. It is co-written by the people doing the work. The Garden and Grounds Lead explains composting and circularity with the conviction a founder might bring to a mission statement. The Head of People and Culture frames inclusion not as policy but as what makes a guest feel welcome. Oyster farmers and weavers appear not as line items in a supply chain but as voices in the report itself. Their contributions carry a point of view, sometimes modest, occasionally unpolished, but unmistakably lived-in rather than performed.

“Sustainability is not what we do around the edges of hospitality.  It is the hospitality,” said Jimena Fuentes Hernández, AWA Partner & Head of People and Culture

Certifications and emissions data do matter, and AWA reports them rigorously. Equally important is where AWA’s commitment originates. When a 25-room lodge makes its staff the agents of its impact rather than the subjects of a policy, sustainability stops being something the hotel does and becomes something the hotel is. That distinction, more than any single metric in the report, is what this launch is about.

Impact is central to the guest experience at AWA, which is built on three pillars: local economy and culture, carbon reduction, and team growth.

Certifications

AWA became the first lodge in Chile to earn B Corp certification, setting a bar only a few others in the region have matched. That commitment extends outward through The B Route and Comunidad B Patagonia, networks of businesses choosing to hold themselves to the same standard.

People and Culture

Women lead most of AWA’s senior management and hold the majority of seats on its board. Half the team calls the surrounding region home, and the property wears its diversity openly. Structured academies cultivate leadership, guidance, and service from within, supported by ongoing health and development programs that treat the team’s growth as inseparable from the guest experience.

Environmental Action

AWA has quietly rebuilt itself: solar power, an electrified kitchen, and pellet heating have displaced fossil fuels across the property, driving emissions down substantially in just a few years, with a target reduction of 80% by 2030. (The baseline year is 2022.) Guest-facing single-use plastics have been eliminated. Guests are encouraged to move through the landscape by bike or electric vehicle rather than car, and much of what reaches the table is grown in the lodge’s own organic garden.

Social Impact

The kitchen relies almost entirely on what the region provides; most of what’s on the table travels less than 100 km, and the supplier list reads like a map of the surrounding valley. Guided routes built around basketry, wool, and the region’s colonial heritage put guests in direct contact with the artisans keeping these traditions alive, while ongoing partnerships with local schools, universities, and government programs extend that commitment well beyond the property line. A weekly market and an annual fair give local women entrepreneurs their own stage.

The full AWA Impact Report 2026/27 and its executive summary are available here.