Environment
Green Engage – how we will promote sustainability and reduce our impact on climate change
In last year’s report we noted our plans to provide environmental benchmarks, best practice and action planning toolkits for all hotels. We first responded with the creation of what we called ‘CR in a Box’ which we provided to our hotels via our annual leadership conferences and this is also available on line.
We also responded with the launch of our new online sustainability system called ‘Green Engage’ which assists our general managers across our 4,000 hotels to manage hotel energy, water and waste consumption more effectively. Early trial models show that we could potentially achieve energy savings of as much as 10% to 20%. Green Engage will benefit owners who can now reduce energy costs through more efficient operating methods, IHG will benefit because it now has a common environmental reporting and management system and consumers will benefit by staying in hotels that more environmentally friendly.
Welcome screen
The ‘Green Engage’ software starts with hotels inputting their on site data. The system automatically generates reports and compares similar hotels across the world. Green Engage includes online lists for both new and current hotels showing the specific actions they need to take to reduce their energy, water and waste. Every aspect of the hotel lifecycle is covered from picking a responsible destination, selecting the correct lighting for the hotel through to selecting responsible cleaning materials and providing staff training on sustainability. The return on investment, carbon reduction and potential impact on our customers is calculated for each action item suggested. Below is an overview of these action areas.
SITE
A hotel’s location affects commuting options, local ecosystems, building energy efficiency and much more. Proper site selection should be given appropriate consideration at the beginning of a project as it will affect many down-stream decisions.
WATER
Responsibilities and opportunities exist with all water that passes through a building and site. Economic and Environmental indicators favour the lowest possible manmade changes to the natural hydrological-cycle.
PRODUCTS & MATERIALS
Materials selected for sustainable buildings should have appropriate performance, durability and environmental properties. Material selection can affect issues ranging from our planet's resources to occupant comfort and health.
WASTE
Construction and demolition activities contribute significant volume to land fills and incinerators that could be avoided with proper management. Diverting this waste can reduce disposal fees and transportation consequences.
BUILDING ENVELOPE
The building envelope is the interface between the indoor and outdoor environments. A properly designed envelope helps to maintain the desired indoor conditions and may permit the use of natural ventilation, passive heating, and day-lighting.
MECHANICAL
Guest comfort, operating costs and many global environmental impacts are all dependant on a hotel’s mechanical systems. Optimum results are achieved when the efficient systems are chosen and designed to work in harmony with the other building systems and components.
ELECTRICAL
Efficient electrical systems in a hotel offer many opportunities to reduce operating costs and capture measurable reductions to environmental impact. The most savings were achieved through improved lighting design; these also increased the enjoyment and comfort of spaces.
OPERATIONS & MANAGEMENT
Hotel and hospitality operations can be very resource intensive. The practices and systems set in place to improve hotel operations and maintenance are an immediate and public way to exhibit a hotel’s commitment to the environment and sustainability.
Green Engage was developed using our designers and engineers as well as the finest in external support. It is suitable for use across all our brands and will provide a consistent platform for measuring our impacts and progress against our objective to make a night with us more carbon efficient.
Green Engage follows the extensive consumer research we completed in 2008. The research showed that today’s hotel guests want sustainable hotels that manage their environmental impact. As well as location, price and amenities, guests are now factoring in a hotel’s environmental credentials when choosing a place to stay.
By utilising ‘Green Engage’, hotels will now have for the first time, a comprehensive online system which tells them what to do to be a green hotel and gives them the means to conserve and save. Green Engage does the following:
- Measure – hotel energy, water and waste produced and their requisite carbon emissions reductions. Hotels can also benchmark themselves against other hotels.
- Manage – the elements of their hotel that most impact the environment. These can range from insulating the hotel’s hot water pipes to introducing a recycling programme and switching to organic cleaning materials to appointing one of the employees as a green champion.
- Report – on progress to date both internally and to guests and corporate clients.
‘Green Aware’ training to support our sustainability objectives
In 2008, our Americas Region successfully rolled out the Green Aware (About, Water, Air, Recycling and Energy) training course on how hotels can become active in better managing their impacts.
In 2008, Green Aware subject matter was based on ESCAP Enviro and our CR in a Box initiative. For 2009, course material has been updated to introduce and instruct hotel staff on how to use our Green Engage tool. (Read more about Green Aware)
Our award winning Innovation Hotel v2.0
In 2008, IHG launched our Innovation Hotel, an online example of what future hotels might look like if they used green technologies. The Innovation Hotel was created so that our guests could tell us what they like and share with us any ideas they feel are important. The site also allows us to consider these ideas and how they might be included in our Green Engage programme or hotel design and operations. Find out more about our innovation hotel.
Our new global headquarters
Read more about how we developed out new global headquarters in Denham with sustainability in mind.
Our Global Information Technology Team and Sustainability
It takes a lot of power to keep the world’s largest lodging company up and running. In addition to the typical Information Technology (IT) infrastructure every large enterprise requires to do business, IHG manages several data centres, 12 contact centres, and all of the systems that enable guests to book hotel rooms in any of our 4,000 properties within IHG’s family of seven hotel brands.
Every hotel owner and operator is aware of the impact rising fuel prices have had on the travel and lodging industries. As energy costs rise, the Global IT team has approached being “green” not only as a way to reduce environmental impact, but also as a business driver that will ultimately lower operating costs across the organisation.
In 2008, our Enterprise Technology team set about to reduce complexity and simplify access to all of IHG’s global distribution systems, online booking platforms, reporting applications and other management tools used by both corporate owned and franchised properties.
The consolidation reduces the amount of hardware necessary and subsequently cuts energy and cooling costs and greatly reduces our environmental impacts. It also provides IHG staff and franchisees with a more user-friendly system designed to increase productivity, adoption of management tools and knowledge sharing.
In addition to streamlining online systems, we are using our supply chain to drive key changes in both data and contact centres by purchasing energy-efficient equipment and implementing Internet-based voice and data networks across the enterprise. The goal is to reduce the number of servers by 80 percent.
In working with suppliers, the Global IT team gathers data on the equipment’s carbon dioxide footprint, cost and energy savings and the supplier’s recycling and repurposing programmes.
IHG expects to complete the transformation of the contact centres by the end of 2009. Initiatives within our hotels are critically focused towards becoming a greener company and Global IT demonstrates how every team in our family can identify innovative and sustainable opportunities in everyday operations. This helps to reduce our environmental impact as well as the cost of doing business.
CR in a Box
Last year we developed ‘CR in a Box’ for our hotels to help start their green journey. CR in a Box is a collection of Corporate Responsibility materials for hotel general managers and their team. It serves as an introduction for those that are starting their CR efforts while also responding to general managers who are more interested or further advanced.
Initially, CR in a Box was rolled out to hotels in North America. We then put it online so that our entire hotel estate can also easily use our tools.
The central element in the box is the Corporate Responsibility Hotel Solutions Guide offering best practice guidance on how to manage CR in hotels and to train and motivate staff on CR issues. Also provided is guidance on how to manage the environmental impact of the hotel, focusing on energy, water and waste; responsible purchasing practices, delivering a positive impact on local communities, destination protection and green meetings.
Besides practical guidance on CR, the box contains materials such as the Global Environmental Policy, example posters to be displayed in hotels, environmental fact cards, and an energy calculation wheel demonstrating the impacts of energy savings in a hotel.
The environment and regulatory trends
In the US climate change policies have already been embraced by more than 850 towns and cities and 32 states. During the recent US Presidential election campaign contenders John McCain and Barack Obama each committed to early enactment of mandatory, economy wide restrictions on emissions by 60 to 80% below 1990 levels by 2050.
The EU adopted an integrated energy and climate change policy in December 2008, including ambitious targets for 2020. It hopes to set Europe on the right track towards a sustainable future with a low-carbon, energy efficient economy by:
- Cutting greenhouse gases by 20% (30% if international agreement is reached)
- Reducing energy consumption by 20% through increased energy efficiency
- Meeting 20% of our energy needs from renewable sources
The UK Government is about to introduce the first ever Climate Change Bill, an example of legislation aimed at limiting global warming. It will set ambitious reduction targets for the UK with the aim of achieving an 80% reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions on 1990 levels by 2050. The Climate Change Bill received Royal Assent at the end of 2008, and gained strong all party support, this will affect policies across every aspect of government. The Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) is one of the key regulations under the Bill through which the Government hopes to achieve significant emissions reductions.
It is clear given the interest that regulatory bodies are showing in reducing carbon and stimulating the economy, that hotels will be increasingly pushed to become more environmentally friendly. Our objective is to be proactive and innovative in our response to regulatory demands.
