How has the economic crisis impacted your engineering department?

Abdul-Quddus Sheikh: I think we saved a handsome amount last year in the Palace hotel and we did very well as compared to the previous year’s utilities’ consumption. We did not spend much on buying specified energy saving devices other than energy saving bulbs, timers and motion detectors — we found other ways and means to fulfill our needs. Plus the slow period forced us to look into alternatives to control our property operation, maintenance and energy costs (POMEC). It’s my second complete year in this hotel and as a result of team effort we saved a good amount of money against our budget of 2009.

In 2008, the total energy cost was AED 7.9 million (US $2.2 million), which reduced to AED 6.9 million ($1.9 million) in 2009. So the total energy savings compared to last year’s consumption was more than AED 1 million less, or 17.8% less.

Sameh Zaki: The main issue with engineering is that we are a spending department. We are actually the expenditure department, most of the other departments are revenue generating, so we are on the spot for any saving. We are the main expenditure and at the same time the main saver — any dirham that you are saving is a complete dirham.

The pressure was there but we proved that engineering can come up with the solution. We saved something like 20% on electricity and with water something like 12%. Everyone I think has done his best and we have survived the tough time.

Madan Kulkarni: With the participation of our colleagues we became more innovative. It’s not that when everything is good we don’t implement energy conservation projects, but it gets you more in depth. We opened a hotel in 2008 and accepted the challenge — there were many advisors who said is that right, but we proved the other way. From day one we knew we were opening in a crisis so had to be more innovative.

The consultant was very clear that you have to allow the building to run for two years before you establish an energy conservation programme but we did not wait — we said that’s a theory, let’s think practically, how we can save? So my F&B, engineering and housekeeping teams surveyed every nook and corner to see how we could bring down the energy bills. I do not have the figure to compare to my previous one because it did not exist, but I can confidently say that we must have saved 30-35%.

Tito D’Costa: We opened our apartments last year and during this crisis we had to come up with new ideas. The contractors were trying to do it cheaply and put in normal bulbs, but we pushed them to go for CFL bulbs and we succeeded. The entire apartments are fitted with CFL bulbs. And with the chillers we adjusted the temperatures; the workers wanted them to be very cool but we were on their back not allowing them to play with the temperatures.

Wael Farouk: I will take it from there and I will really challenge myself and the engineering teams, because I have been asking myself if we can do it this year, then why have these things not been implemented for the previous year, why did we not focus on this in previous years? This is a question; I do not have an answer, this is a question for the group.

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That is a good point. Everyone has been talking about energy saving without any prompting; is this your main priority going forward?

SZ: We had a very big challenge in Jumeirah last year. We did have our own sewage treatment plant but we got the opportunity to connect to the municipality. So in doing that we lost the irrigation water that was coming from the sewage treatment plant, so we had to use the fresh water. One of our guys came up with an idea — we backwash the swimming pool, waste water is thrown to the drainage — why don’t we collect it and treat it and use it for irrigation? And actually we did that and this minimised the usage of fresh water by around 75%.Now we are collecting all the waste water from the different systems in the hotel and using it for that.

WF: For my side I will say that focusing on people gives the best result. So what we have done is inspired by Earth Hour; in our associate housing we have a weekly earth hour and every Saturday from 8-9pm we are encouraging our people to reduce the light to the minimum. We have created Marriott Business Council Green Committee –— every hotel is represented by two people — so what we are doing in the seven hotels we are doing at the same time.

We started only with reducing the lights; I’m planning to add more activities to that day. When you build these things into the people, you are sure they will do it in life.I don’t have solid figures because I have implemented this only six months ago, but for sure these thing count to their attitude and their awareness.

They know now that I’m not saying this because I want to be seen as a good engineering department — but because we really have a responsibility and a role to play.

This was highlighted at the UN Climate Change Conference a few weeks ago — the ice is melting at 5km per hour so we have to start doing something. So we are putting our focus on energy not because we are saving it, but because it is a matter of saving our world and we are lucky that the challenge is coming to us because they rely on us as engineers — we have the tools to help.