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In December 2005, the Royal Lancaster set up an Energy and Environmental Task Force comprising of representatives across key departments within the hotel. Having established a need to identify a system of recycling implementation and energy saving measures, monthly initiative meetings were introduced to create a brainstorming forum, assess existing organisational practices and to monitor figures of utility consumption and landfill requirement – with a serious aim to reduce these figures.

Since these initial meetings the Royal Lancaster has taken great strides in achieving these aims.  Namely in developing and adopting economically, socially and environmentally sustainable policies within the hotel, accomplishing a substantial reduction in the amount of landfill waste of just over 50 percent per guest per night, helping us to win the WRAP Challenge Award in January 2007 in addition to the prestigious Considerate Hotel of the Year Award 2006.

This year we have made a conscious effort to motivate staff across all departments to work closely together, coordinating their efforts in a bid to reduce our energy consumption and waste. These environmental aims and measures have also been included in our staff induction programme to all new members of staff and have become a top level subject for discussion within all monthly departmental meeting agendas.

Throughout the hotel, Duty Managers are now required to carry out a check list at the start and end of their shift ensuring that lights, equipment and leaking taps are turned off when not in use.   The hotel’s Engineering Department has also made great progress in changing all light bulbs within the hotel rooms, to those that are energy saving, also installing gauges on all boilers to cap the water temperature in our taps.  

The Royal Lancaster has also introduced an annual staff “Green Awareness Day” in the hotel. A recycling company was invited to talk to staff on the many different ways that they could become more actively environmentally conscious – not only in their work place but at home too – with ideas on how to adopt water saving methods and energy saving light bulbs being sold. The day was a huge success and enjoyed by all.

The hotel’s award-winning scheme has now been in place for over a year, successfully accomplishing its mission to implement positive new energy saving initiatives and raising awareness among staff. With huge support at board level, the whole culture of the hotel has changed.

We have already seen impressive cost savings from the recycling initiatives, and are constantly assessing these and searching for ways in which they can be improved. Our goal is to see a 5% decrease in energy consumption year on year, which we hope will be aided by plans to create ‘intelligent bedrooms’ whereby power in the rooms are controlled by a central key –  when a guest leaves their room the power is automatically switched off.

The Royal Lancaster has taken great steps to become a more environmentally aware business, and to see these achievements recognised in the winning of two major awards will motivate the team to achieve even greater success in this important area.