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.
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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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