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Latest News from a hotel that is trying to be green and not just a greenwasher!
Date : 3rd September 2009
You may be interested to know that we have spent (at a guess) around 25k on initiatives to reduce energy at the hotel already. Over a period of rising turnover and building usage we have decreased energy consumed, however because of the recession it has been difficult to spare any money for further capital expenditure, however we all know that as a society we have to assess our priorities and therefore I have signed up the hotel for the 10:10 programme, which means a 10% cut in energy by the end of 2010, more information on how it can be done is below, but for your interest here is a chart of what we have achieved so far:
 To explain the chart, the key drivers were alot of insulation, changes to lighting and new equipment such as fridges and freezers etc. The quickest fall occured in 2006/2007 but it was really a weather story, and the underlying improvements were harder to achieve than originally thought. The pace of improvement in the last 12 months has been glacial due to the inability to spend money on capital expenditure.
To make a real difference and get our energy usage down the main priority is updating our heating and hot water plant, which has been a delayed project because of the building plans. There are a myriad of other minor projects e.g. lighting and equipment but the main focus is heating.
Date : 21st July 2008
Since 2004 (previous ownership) - and we are busier than then: Electricity (kWh) down 16%
Gas (kWh) down 6.7%
According to hospitality climes we are better than best practise (whatever that means) on Co2 emissions per bedroom.
Current waste recylcing estimates (no direct recycling under previous ownership):
Overall 50%
Bar glass 95%
Cardboard 95%
General paper 25%
Guest waste 10%
Food scraps 0%
Waste Cooking Oil 99%
Rain harvesting 0%
Food Miles: No estimate available,although much of our food
comes from Northamptonshire (but some is from overseas at present)
For me the results are not good enough, we have initiatives/capital expenditure planned to make substantial improvements this year across all areas of waste and energy, whilst maintaining the guest experience or improving it.
We built the recycling area in 2007 - after much planning permission grief. We plan to do more waste recycling with guest and staff bins. We hope to find someone to take our food scraps. Nothing is planned on rain harvesting at present, although I am considering it as part of the general redevelopment. We were considering solar hot water but it appears to be uneconomic in the proposed location (at the time of writing). Rome was not built in a day!
Matt W, Proprietor
Any queries email me here: director@limetreeshotel.co.uk
The fifty in five plan
Put simply my objective is to cut energy and waste by 50 percent within five years.
The strategy is simple and achievable (and considerable headway has been made already)
1. Cut gas consumption by 50%, this will be achieved by updating equipment and continuing to improve insulation
2. Cut electricity consumption by 50%, this will be achieved by continuing to rethink our lighting and equipment
3. Cut landfill waste by 50%, this will be achieved by improved recycling and the elimination of wasteful practises
4. Cut water consumption by 50%, this will be achieved by rainwater harvesting and water saving fittings and practises. This will take the hotel far beyond current guidelines provided by the Government for best practise in a hotel of our building type. At the same time we will more than make our contribution to reducing carbon emissions and other pollutants, and help stop the need to embark on more foolish foreign policy escapades on the other side of the world.
Hotels are not particularly environmentally friendly buildings, why:
1. People expect them to be well lit
2. People expect them to be well heated, or cooled
3. People expect various disposable items to be made available
But that doesnt mean that we cant be environmentally friendly, it just takes alot of effort. I am rethinking everything in the hotel,particularly on how it works from an energy point of view. Although I have always been environmentally conscious, I have to admit that until utility prices started rising a few years ago it was a back burner issue. I now have the motivation to save money and to save the world, and as the hotel is on a better financial footing than when I first bought it I have the "luxury" of time to devote to solving the problem.
Being environmentally friendly saves money and for that reason I expect many people and organisations to reevaluate their ways of doing things. We dont need to live in a mud hut and eat only potatoes to do it, it just takes motivation. Most things in our economy have been designed without energy efficiency in mind, and can often be reconfigured or designed to be far more efficient yet give the same effective benefit.
I gain a fantastic amount of pleasure from finding something that can be improved,maybe you could too.
MW - Jan 2008
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