BEST PRACTICE CASE STUDY: Rezidor's Think Planet
Rezidor officially launched its Think Planet initiative in September, with the aim to cut its global energy use cut by a quarter. We find out why, how and what the results have been so far
With its Scandinavian roots, some people may overlook Rezidor’s grand announcements of energy efficiencies and schemes to cut carbon emissions, thinking it is somewhat expected.
However, no-one can ignore the great strides being made by a company that has launched a programme to cut its energy use by 25% globally in five years.
The Think Planet programme officially launched in September, but was initially announced internally in January, with staff training videos and documents sent out in April to properties across the world.
The first stage in the process was to achieve Green Key’s eco-label – something all 31 of Rezidor’s Middle East properties have done, with any new property set a six-month target to achieve the goal.
Rationale and Objectives
At the launch in Dubai, Rezidor’s director of responsible business Inge Huijbrechts explained the background to the initiative: “Just to put things in perspective, the Rezidor Hotel Group, with our 330-plus hotels in operation, we consume 1.1 terawatt hours each year.
Our savings over five years will be 830 gigawatts, which is 1.5 times the consumption of all households in Iceland, so we will be making an enormous difference by reducing this energy consumption.
“Tourism is a very important industry globally but sometimes not recognised as such. It represents 9% of GDP worldwide and it is expected to grow 4% each year according to figures from the World Travel and Tourism Council,” says Huijbrechts.
More startling still, she adds that according to the research and assuming business as usual, energy usage within the tourism sector will double by 2050.
Huijbrechts explains that over the five years prior to the launch of Think Planet, the Radisson Blu brand cut its overall energy consumption by 5.5%, while Park Inn by Radisson slashed consumption by 12.5%. However, with the economic crisis, owners weren’t as willing to invest in new energy-cutting technologies, and the company’s efforts “were stagnating”.
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Concept and Investment
The first stage of the programme focuses on the company’s staff – trying to change their habits with the use of the Think Planet mascot, Lumi. “We know from experience that focusing on operations can make about 5% difference in your consumption in a hotel,” Huijbrechts says.
An online quiz has been launched which asks staff five questions each month, with one winner being given an iPad. “It’s resulted in fantastic engagement,” she adds – around 1000 staff take part every month.
The next step in the process is making small, relatively inexpensive changes in the hardware of hotels, which can make a big difference.
Aerators can be bought and installed for around five dirhams (US $1.4), which allows less water to be used by guests and staff, but still has the same effect.
Huijbrechts says that all investments should be looking at a maximum of a seven year period to start seeing an ROI, with five years being better in terms of trying to convince owners to adopt the technologies and invest in implementing them.
She adds that it has actually started to become easier recently, as energy prices have started increasing. “In Jordan, energy prices have increased by around 30%, so the time to start seeing returns has gone down from six years to four years, for example.”
In Practice
The biggest challenge is still dealing with owners Huijbrechts admits, but in this region, awareness is increasing, and she says that due to it lagging behind places such as Europe, technologies which are new here “might already have been tested for one or two years” elsewhere, and so proof of savings are there already.
However, there have been some considerable savings across hotels in both Africa and Europe.
In Mozambique, Park Inn by Radisson Tete now heats all sanitary water using solar power, while in Radisson Blu Hotel Sandton, South Africa, there was a full lighting refit of almost 4000 bulbs, which has resulted in a 25% saving in electricity.
Meanwhile, Radisson Blu Hotel East Midlands Airport is the first hotel in the world to be classed ‘excellent’ by BREEAM, a European eco-label.
Around 90% of its energy is now from renewable sources, and has a combined heat and power engine running on plant oils. At Radisson Blu Hotel Manchester Airport, management witnessed a 25% reduction in electricity costs without any large investment, but instead by looking at the functioning of the existing plant.
An additional 34% was cut in gas usage when wireless CO2 control units were installed on the boilers.
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CASE STUDY: Basel Talal, General manager,
Radisson Blu Sharjah
With the help of the training collateral that we have received from the head office we have been able to run training sessions for all our staff members.
Our first project was the switching from Diesel to Natural Gas. The project took five months to complete with an investment of AED 800,000 ($217,796).
Our monthly CO2 emissions are reduced by nearly 29% and the return on investment is expected to be in 10 months.
As part of the programme, future projects include creating a water desalination plant for the hotel, replacing all halogen bulbs with LED bulbs and there is a further initiative whereby during the summer months the hotel will completely rely on recycled grey water for its gardening needs.
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CASE STUDY: Ashraf Naguib, General manager,
Radisson Blu Hotel, Cairo Heliopolis
The benefits of the ‘Think Planet’ campaign will make a major impact at the hotel. They include initially saving 15% on electricity consumption by fitting 6500 LED lights in all rooms with an eventual target of a 75% saving; fitting daylight sensors and motion detectors in public toilets and guest corridors plus timers in the sauna, facade lighting and the landscape.
Already, the new steam boiler is more efficient to heat the pool than solar power and the hot water supply is now more efficient after installing a heat exchange unit, while a new water softener unit has improved supply to guest rooms.
New power saving units for air conditioning and lighting have also been installed in rooms and demands on the system will be reduced by applying coverings to windows throughout the hotel and the atrium.
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CASE STUDY: Sam Holmberg, General manager,
Radisson Blu Waterfront Hotel, Stockholm & Stockholm Waterfront
Our technical staff are continuously optimising the energy use in this highly technical building.
The Building Management System learns as we go, for example by integrating online weather forecast data.
We are currently at a consumption of 100 kWh/m2 which is very low, but with the optimisation of our systems we believe we can go even lower than that, to around 80 kWh/m2.
We have planned a full installation of LED lighting in the hotel’s public spaces and meeting rooms, and additionally, we are looking to cooperate with local innovative companies e.g. by testing a new type of highly efficient wind turbine. Our 1000m² solar-collecting facade gathers one megawatt of energy daily.