SUSTAINABLE HOTEL DESIGN
8. ENERGY EFFICIENCY
2.5 CONCLUSION
The transition to a low-carbon economy can only take place once all stake- holders realize the importance of cooperation in mitigating emissions. In other words, it is about governments’ long-term approach to innovation and green growth, it is also about business current energy management practices and about individual behavior towards consumption and use of resources. While the momentum is picking up in terms of energy efficiency in businesses (as reported by the OECD, 2010), there is still great potential for improvement in both energy efficiency measures and use of renewable energy in the hospital- ity industry. This article pointed out that one of the first actions to be under- taken by hotels is the measurement and disclosure of carbon emissions. This helps companies assess the impacts of their activities and the costs related to the use of resources and mitigation of those impacts.
On the road to mitigation, the use of free-of-charge online self adminis- tered energy audit tools (FOSEA) can help hotel companies to understand their current use of energy and overall emissions. This particularly applies to small and medium-sized (SMEs) hospitality operations, which often do not have energy measurement and auditing proprietary systems. FOSEA tools have been created to allow SMEs to engage in sustainable practices by mea- suring performance without an initial cost. Most FOSEA tools offer basic val- ues in providing sufficient, easy to understand information for SME managers who are at the beginning of their sustainable initiatives. Following a clear un- derstanding of the energy use and consequent carbon dioxide emissions, hote- liers can then take actions to reduce emissions. Chain hotels on the other hand pay an important role in the development in the hospitality industry and have,
generally speaking better financial means to implement sustainable practices.
Many hotel chains have implemented their own environmental management program or corporate social responsibility initiatives and have additionally developed their own measurement and audit tools to track sustainability per- formance. Hoteliers have the responsibility to protect the environment and in- crease sustainable activities, independent from the hotel size, age or financial means (Oderwald, 2008). However, once a hotelier decides to either refurbish or renovate a property or alternatively to build a new facility, then consider- ations should be made in terms of choice of construction material (embodied energy) and alternative design practices (passive solar design/eco-design).
This represents the ‘input’ stage of the life-cycle approach to the management of facilities. Considerations at the input stages will directly affect the output (in terms of emissions or waste) from the operations. While numerous hote- liers have implemented some principles of eco-design and given consider- ations to material used in construction, these are few and far in between. In the context of sustainable development, hospitality ventures must strive to create optimum relationships between people and their environments. Sustainable development in hospitality equates to operations, which should have absolute minimal impact on the local, regional, and global environments.
KEYWORDS
• carbon emissions
• energy audits
• green hotels
• life cycle assessment
• online energy auditing
• sustainable design principles
• sustainable hotel design
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