Accorhotels has managed to reduce its carbon footprint and energy consumption levels by 3.8% and 4.5% respectively. Accorhotels has managed to reduce its carbon footprint and energy consumption levels by 3.8% and 4.5% respectively.

AccorHotels signed a partnership with Energy Observer on the sidelines of the COP21 in Paris.

The Energy Observer team’s mission will be to test the latest and most innovative clean energy technologies as it sails the seas and during its 101 stopovers around the world.

Energy Observer, which is currently being built in Saint Malo, is a boat intended as an open-air laboratory. The vessel will be totally energy-sufficient thanks to the use of a complete hydrogen chain which for the first time includes fuel cells and renewable energy electrolyzer systems (wind power, solar panels or hydro generators).

AccorHotels and CEA will subsequently reproduce these technologies in pilot establishments to test them in a hotel environment with a view to wider deployment.

Sébastien Bazin, AccorHotels chairman and CEO said: “Our partnership with Energy Observer reflects our desire, as a sustainable hotel constructor and operator, to stimulate a long-term virtuous approach. This is notably the mission of HotelInvest, the division that manages our property assets. It constructs, operates and enhances the value of our buildings in the best and most durable way while respecting the environment. For example, we are working on reducing the ecological footprint of our hotels throughout their life cycle and that starts with making our buildings more energy efficient from the moment they are constructed.”

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This experimental multi-energy catamaran is being developed by two men who are passionate about the sea in collaboration with CEA, the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission. The group aims to move its hotels towards energy transition.

Energy Observer will be baptised in Paris in 2016 before embarking on its round-the-world trip to 50 countries, with 101 stopovers and 2,000 days of sailing. In an exclusive for the COP21, a model of the boat was exhibited early this month.

As part of this collaboration, the technical teams of HotelInvest, Accorhotels’ property asset management business, will work with CEA Tech scientists, renewable energy specialists and the skippers Victorien Erussard and Frederic Dahirel.

Since 2011, Acorhotels has reduced the energy consumption and CO2 emissions of its portfolio of owned, leased and managed hotels by 4.5% and 3.8% respectively.