Thanks to Associate Director, Yohan Hill and Consultant, Arpita Raskit, this month CC has contributed to a great feature in Hotel Business Magazine. Titled ‘how to reduce your hotel’s carbon footprint’, the feature looks at how eco-friendly practices and low-carbon policies can result in energy savings, lower costs, better business and a healthier planet.
Here is an extract from the feature:
You probably have a long to-do list and ‘reducing the hotel’s carbon footprint’ might not be near the top. It might not even feature on your list of priorities at all. But it should,
according to Yohan Hill, associate director, and Arpita Raksit, consultant, at Corporate Citizenship, the global corporate responsibility consultancy. We spoke to them to find out how hotels can improve their energy efficiency, cut costs and help the planet at the same time…
In what areas and in what ways can hotels reduce their carbon footprint?
Hotels are big consumers of energy. And energy in most instances equals carbon – from lighting, heating, ventilation and air-conditioning through to catering, cleaning and laundry services. One principal mechanism for reducing their carbon footprint, therefore, is to improve energy efficiency, whether through better building design, better energy management, more energy-efficient equipment and appliances or behavioural change. Another means of reducing the carbon footprint of hotels is through fuel switching and making greater use of renewable energy where possible.
An interesting example of this in practice is the work being done by Whitbread, the UK’s largest hotel and restaurant group, including well-known brands such as Premier Inn, Costa, Brewers Fayre, Beefeater Grill, Table Table and Taybarns. A few years ago the company opened two signature Premier Inn low-carbon properties at Tamworth and Burgess Hill. On average these hotels use 50 per cent to 80 per cent less energy than other Premier Inns of a similar size. They have made use of technologies such as ground source heat pumps, high-efficiency thermal insulation, LED lights and automated light controls with intelligent sensors turning lights off when not in use, heat-recovery shower systems capturing and reusing energy used by the boilers, and sun pipes reducing the need for artificial lighting by increasing natural light. Efforts to reduce water consumption through low-flow showerheads also have the knock-on effect of reducing the energy needed for water heating. The company has also adopted low-carbon techniques in the construction of these properties using timber-frame construction methods from sustainably sourced wood.
Read the full article in Hotel Business Magazine – September edition. Pages 20-21.