Hotels give green light to cleaner tomorrows

New practices by Penny Russell

Hotels give green light to cleaner tomorrows

Groups strive to minimise damage

AS society becomes increasingly aware of environmental concerns, many hotels are also doing their best to develop more environmentally friendly practices.

Scandic Hotels, for example, has pioneered a 97% recyclable hotel room and is building or refitting 1,500 of these rooms annually.

The group is also using 20% less water per guest than it was three years ago. The Vienna Hilton and Vienna Plaza hotels have cut laundry loads by around 164,000 kg annually by giving guests the option of not having their towels changed daily.

Radisson SAS Hotels has forged long-term relationships with suppliers that can prove they are supplying environmentally preferable products, or are willing to develop them.

Around eight years ago, Starwood Hotels introduced a system throughout its European hotels which measured energy consumption of all types on a unit basis and enabled them to benchmark this consumption across all of the region’s hotels. Between them the properties managed to cut energy consumption by over 25%.

Meanwhile Forte Hotels is about to recruit a dedicated environmental manager to drive its green policies. Its Le Meridien hotels already encourage guests to use more environmentally friendly ways of energy consumption.

In January, Le Meridien Jumeirah Beach in Dubai was named the Middle East’s first Eco Hotel after achieving the ISO 14001 environmental system standard award.

Forte Hotels is one member of the International Hotels Environment Initiative, which was founded in 1992 by chief executive officers of 10 multinational hotel chains.

It develops guidelines for responsible hotel planning and purchasing and has come up with a benchmarking guide for hotels. It also produces a magazine called Green Hotelier.

For information on the IHEI guides contact Natasha Yeates at ihei@mmcltd.com, tel: 01252 669601; fax: 01252 669670.

For a copy of the best practice manual, The Environmental Management for Hotels (£150), e-mail Sarah Journeaux at bh.orders@repp.co.uk, tel: 01865 888180; fax: 01865 314 029.

factfile

International Hotels Environmental initiative members

* Accor

* Bass Hotels and Resorts

* Forte Hotels

* Marco Polo Hotels

* Marriott International

* Radisson SAS Hotels Worldwide

* Scandic Hotels

* Starwood Hotels and Resorts

* The Indian Group of Hotels

* TUI Group

* Corporate partners and sponsors include American Express Establishment Services and Quadriga