Innovation hotel

Suppliers

Customer expectations around Corporate Responsibility are increasing, and CR now plays an important role in differentiating an enterprise. Customers are also coalescing around companies’ green initiatives and are increasingly demanding socially minded products, services and supply chains. Actions that ‘green’ a hotels’ supply chain include adding green product specifications, using local suppliers where possible and asking suppliers to reduce and remove the packaging waste.

Screen savers/power save

Simply switching off PCs and monitors when they are not being used, or enabling standby features such as screensavers, can reduce energy usage – and bills – considerably. Such measures also have the added benefit of prolonging the lifespan of equipment, leading to further savings of energy and expense. Seven-day timers can even be fitted to multi-use equipment to ensure it gets switched off out of office hours.

IHG Academy

In China we have developed the IHG Academies in partnership with a number of educational bodies to provide training to equip students with the skills required by the hotel industry. These Academies operate in 10 locations, are supported by 24 partners in the region and in October 2008 there were 4,200 students enrolled on one of these programmes. We also now have developed plans for Academies in parts of Europe and the Middle East.

Green Engage

‘Green Engage’ assists our general managers in managing hotel energy, water and waste consumption more effectively. Hotels input their on-site data and the system automatically generates reports and compares similar hotels around the world. Green Engage also includes online lists showing the specific actions hotels need to take to reduce their energy, water and waste, covering every aspect of the hotel lifecycle. The return on investment, carbon reduction and potential impact on our customers is calculated for each action item suggested.

Green Aware

The ‘Green Aware’ (About, Water, Air, Recycling & Energy) programme supports our CR efforts by providing a one-day class on how to make hotels more sustainable. The class is based on our Green Engage tool and the Innovation Hotel concept and is designed to provide general managers, chief engineers, executive housekeepers, directors of operation and owners with a better understanding of green concepts.

During the day participants exchange ideas on how to implement a variety of environmentally friendly techniques whilst assessing other areas of opportunity for improving existing eco-friendly processes.

Printing practices

Hotels can employ printing practices and materials which help minimise the negative impact on the environment. For example, InterContinental Hotels Group endeavours to produce 'green' and 'eco friendly' instructional materials – the team producing the 2009 OnBoardT Project Management Materials has made responsible choices regarding materials, vendor selections and printing processes without sacrificing quality or design. In digitally printing the materials, dry inks are used, which are non-toxic and not considered to be hazardous according to any regulatory classification criterium. The press used involves no generation or use of alcohols, chlorinated solvents, acids or flammable materials.