Three ways of ensuring your hotel is leading the way in sustainability

Sustainable practices are part and parcel of today’s evolving hospitality industry and differ from hotel to hotel depending on needs and location. Sustainability is also becoming increasingly important to conscious consumers and investing in eco-friendly technology can improve a guest’s experience at the hotel. Whether you are looking to implement a huge project or team up with likeminded businesses, there are many ways hoteliers stay at the forefront of sustainability. Partner with eco-friendly businesses Joining forces with charities and eco-friendly companies will provide both green and corporate social responsibility (CSR) benefits to businesses that may not have the option of on-site sustainable facilities. The Ritz London and Red Carnation Hotel Collection are partnered with CleanConscience, an innovative company set up with the aim of reducing waste from the hospitality industry going to landfills, by recovering partly used soap and guest amenities. CleanConscience manually sort, sterilise and reprocess soaps and toiletries and distribute them globally to people suffering from life threatening diseases, preventable by the simple process of hand washing with soap. Each hotel donates all of its partly used soap and toiletries to the charity, and with the assistance of mainly disabled volunteers, CleanConscience creates fresh bars of soap, which are then gifted to humanitarian aid organisations in the UK and abroad. Keep it local For over 50 years, since its establishment as a country house hotel, Chewton Glen has been committed to the sensitive custodianship of the hotel and its 130 acres of grounds, and actively supports the local environment and economy wherever possible. As a member of the New Forest Tourism Association’s Green Leaf Scheme, the hotel is committed to working with its local community to find ways to reduce waste and improve energy efficiency, resulting in reduced pollution and Co2 emissions. The management team of Chewton Glen also actively lobby against any activities which could prejudice the harmony and amenity of the environment locally. To ensure awareness of key environmental issues and their impact is known throughout the hotel, Chewton Glen has established a Corporate Social Responsibility Committee, whose remit is to lead, monitor and take steps to improve its Environmental Policy. Invest in on-site facilities For those hotels with the budget and space to do so, investing in on-site renewable energy systems is a brilliant way of reducing your carbon footprint. The four-star Matfen Hall has recently implemented a series of energy saving initiatives allowing the 53-bedroom hall, golf course and spa complexes, to be entirely powered by fuel sourced from the its own estate. A former staff bungalow has been converted into a state-of-the-art boiler house, where woodchips from the estate’s 500 acres of woodland are fed into a giant bio-mass boiler. Hot water and heating is then supplied to the hotel through a network of heavily insulated underground pipes. The bio-mass boiler is one of the many ways Matfen Hall is serving the environment, with others including its ‘zero to landfill’ policy, which sees food waste being separated from other waste materials, allowing everything to be recycled. Managing Director, Bernard Bloodworth FIH MI said: “Sustainability and environmental awareness are at the heart of everything we do here at Matfen Hall. We have followed a zero to landfill policy for the last three years. We take our responsibilities to the environment very seriously.”