FINNS Bali Launches Island’s First SAR Helicopter Service And Beach Cleaning Robot
If you’ve read the news recently, we can forgive you for feeling anxious and depressed when you think about the future. The papers are full of nothing but doom and gloom, particularly around environmental issues.
But at FINNS Bali, we refuse to think like that. We believe that if we all play our part, there’s a bright future ahead for the planet and the people who live on it.
On the 19th of August, 2025, the FINNS team invited a select group of journalists from the local and international press to share our vision of a world where people party like there is a tomorrow. We called it FINNS Future Nation, and now, we’d like to share what happened with you, too.
FINNS Future Nation
The purpose of FINNS Future Nation was to let the world know about the things FINNS has already achieved with its partners in the community to make Bali’s tomorrow a little brighter.
It was also to give people an insight into what comes next as we expand our ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) activities for even greater impact.
The Scores On The Doors
Two of the senior leaders in the FINNS business, Asrama, Community Director, and Wirawan, Community and Relationship Director, both Indonesian nationals, kicked off the event with a report of things that FINNS has already done.
They noted that our journey down this path began in 2016, when the business committed to a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) strategy.
And that, it quickly became clear that CSR wasn’t enough and that FINNS could play a bigger role in protecting Bali’s nature and culture as one of the largest, if not the largest, businesses on the island.
So, in 2022, we formally established an ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) department to help us take a proactive lead in these areas in Bali.
Waste Management For FINNS
Wirawan shared that one of the major challenges we’ve tackled is managing our waste, as a business, responsibly. We’ve now built a 200 m2 waste-sorting facility that can, and eventually will, process up to 5 tons of waste a day as all the FINNS Group businesses come online.
This means that all of the waste generated by FINNS Bali is now separated at source for recycling, composting, repurposing and disposal.
But building a waste management facility isn’t enough in its own right; it’s the impact that matters, and in the last year alone, according to independent auditors, FINNS has cut back from sending 80% of its waste to landfills to 20%. By the end of 2026, the company has committed to sending just 5% of its waste to landfills!
They also announced that we would be holding the public launch of the BeBot beach cleaning robot at the event.
Some Hard Numbers
Wirawan and Asrama also shared some hard facts about the ESG efforts of FINNS and their partners, so that people could appreciate the scope of work that had already been done.
- FINNS has diverted over 1 million kilograms of waste from landfills since the start of its waste management journey. That’s the equivalent weight of around 200 elephants!
- FINNS has worked with the local NGO Stella’s Child to help train over 250 young people from impoverished communities in life skills, entrepreneurship and hospitality skills.
- FINNS has worked with another local NGO, SoleFamily, to distribute thousands of food packages in local communities in need. We’ve also helped to bring joy to over 400 children with special needs from those communities by hosting Kids’ Fun Days.
- FINNS has also teamed up with partners to plant over 800 mangrove trees and 750 corals to help protect the coast of Bali, filter the air on the island and provide homes for local marine life.
- Our guests have donated almost 720 million Indonesian Rupiah to the NGOs and local communities that we support.
- FINNS and Grab, the ride-share company, have partnered to deliver the free FINNS Loop shuttle service in Berawa, Canggu. It’s helped over 20,000 people get around this part of the island, which is equivalent to the population of a small town!
- And this has been done while FINNS has become a major employer in Bali. We currently employ 2,038 local staff. Staff who enjoy fair benefits, wages, training and a workplace that celebrates both diversity and religious freedom. That’s more than 2,000 people who can now support the families and communities in a meaningful way.
The Other Speakers
The audience also heard from the Vice Regent of Badung and the Badung Regent’s wife, who stepped in to cover for her husband at the last minute.
She spoke about the 16 million visitors to Bali in 2024 and how this was vital to the economy of the island, but that the environment was the soul of the land and vital for future generations to enjoy similar successes.
FINNS was given credit for its role in leading the way for a better future, including our ban on single-use plastics, the replacement of straws and bottles with reusable alternatives, our partnerships with local organisations such as Community Waste Project, EcoBali and the Plastic Bank Foundation for processing recyclable waste.
They also noted our composting partners, Urban Compost and PDU Mengwitani and our collaborations with EcoTouch and ChopValue, which sees waste turned into both furniture and materials for uniforms.
She also praised FINNS’ investment in the community and our work with Stella’s Child to empower Balinese children.
Finally, she spoke about the BeBot robot to be launched and lauded the fact that it would help to improve the overall cleanup work on the beaches without displacing jobs or team members on the cleanup crew.
They were also joined by the Head of Desa Tibubeneng, a prominent local figure who has worked with FINNS for many years who highlighted the importance of the work we’ve done for the environment and the community.
Stella’s Child
Stella’s Child also spoke about the work they’ve been doing with FINNS. They highlighted the beach galas with FINNS that have raised funds for 50 children’s scholarships each year for training, English classes and entrepreneurship programs.
They raised over $10,000 in a single night in 2024 at one such gala and provided venues for over 200 students to learn as a result of this.
Two of the children who have benefited from the Stella’s Child program came to speak about their successes with the program and their new and exciting roles in the world of work.
EcoTouch
Helped to show that 96% of all waste in Bali is currently mismanaged. It’s dumped illegally or ineffectively and is polluting the environment at a rapid rate.
They spoke about how FINNS has been working to compost and recycle waste wherever possible, rather than disposing of it.
Finally, they taught our guests how to make beautiful bracelets from recycled materials.
SGI
SGI came to announce a new initiative with FINNS that will see the launch of a brand new helicopter Search and Rescue (SAR) service on the island.
FINNS will be funding 50% of this program, and it will help to save lives across Bali and neighbouring islands.
There will be a state-of-the-art Bell helicopter, which has been fitted out for SAR missions, along with a specialist, highly trained crew. It will have a permanent winch for land and sea rescues, and can carry either 11 emergency operators or a stretcher for hospitalisation purposes.
The service has an effective operation radius of 550 km, which means it can operate as far away as Mount Rinjani on a single tank of fuel.
All of the crew will be trained in the latest SAR techniques, and the winch operator, doctor and winch rider will receive additional training in the use of winches for rescue operations. The pilot will also receive training on operating flights on marine craft.
This service will operate in conjunction with Indonesia’s main SAR agency, BASARNAS, and aims to have a 30-minute response time after receiving a call.
The BeBot Launch
The big highlight of the day came at the end when the BeBot went live in front of the public for the very first time.
This is a beach cleaning robot purchased by FINNS for over 1 billion IDR! It cleans where humans cannot, removing dirt from the beach to a depth of up to 10 centimetres.
That means our human team can focus on removing large pieces of debris from the surface of the beach, and then the robot can handle sifting the sands for smaller pieces of plastic and other trash like cigarette butts and bottle caps.
It’s capable of covering up to 3000 m2 of beach in a single hour, and it will significantly reduce the amount of microplastics found in the environment in the future.
FINNS is already using the BeBot to help clean one of the local public beaches, and over time, it is envisaged that the BeBot will help to keep even more of the area’s beaches clean in future partnerships.
Final Thoughts On FINNS Future Nation
The team at FINNS is under no delusions. The future of Bali is the future of tourism on the island. The environment is essential to the people of the land, the communities we serve and to each and every business here.
It’s not an option to sit back and do nothing while that environment is under threat. Our ESG policies are designed not just to enable FINNS to make a difference but also for us to share our knowledge and learning with other organisations and local communities in order for them to make a difference too.
We party like there is a tomorrow, because we intend to play our part in making certain that tomorrow is better than yesterday here in Bali. Every single day.
