Taking the Green Road

As part of a longer term strategy to reduce its carbon footprint, Macdonald Hotels and Resorts identified energy consumption as a key issue and immediately looked to the technology already available.

One of the most important parts of energy control is the ability to accurately monitor the amount of energy being used. For our electricity, the majority of properties have been fitted with Half Hourly (HH) meters that provide very accurate readings to the supplier, and in turn, we have been able to access the data and produce good quality year on year reports. This has helped us to identify problems quickly and address them.

On the back of the success with the HH meter monitoring, the remaining properties will have smart meters installed, allowing us to fully incorporate date from the whole of the estate in the KWh reports. Next on the agenda will be the gas meters, giving us the ability to very accurately monitor gas consumption.

In addition and to help us to continue to reduce our energy consumption, we have also invested in more efficient lighting. We have just signed a contract with one of the UK's leading lighting suppliers who will be working with us to complete audits across the estate, and replace the remaining standard lighting with some of the most energy efficient high quality products available on the market, such as dimmable energy bulbs which will be on sale later this year. Movement sensors have also been installed where appropriate, ensuring lighting is only on in areas such as corridors, when actually needed.

The investment energy efficiency and lighting has resulted in significant savings for the company - we have reduced our electricity consumption, for example, some of the hotels have reduced their KWh by as much as 20%, and while the gas data to date is not as accurate, we believe the reduction is in excess of 10%. As a basic calculation, we have achieved a reduction of 2,000 tonnes in our carbon emissions for the year ending September 2007.

Other key activities over the next twelve months will include:

• minimising the amount of waste going to landfill by introducing a recycling programme across the portfolio
• a waste audit, following which cardboard balers and glass collections will be introduced
• a move, in partnership with our new suppliers, Office Depot, we are aiming to have 90% of our printer cartridges and 10% of all of other stationary coming from recycled products.
• the introduction of a Green Business Travel Policy.

Green Tourism	A Green Approach To Golf