Serious green thinker
The ITC hotel group has spearheaded many eco-initiatives making it pioneer in the India hospitality industry. Niranjan Khatri, general manager -Welcomenviron Initiatives, ITC Hotels says any hotel can adapt to eco-sustenance based on available finances
Is it important to be green today? Why do you think it is important to be green?
Green is equal to quality and we all give importance to quality. The conventional understanding of quality is from a product or service perspective. We need to modify our thinking so that we maintain external quality and integrity of the ecosystem from where we get our sustenance.
So the short answer is yes – it is important to be green. Because if do not take care of our capital there will be no resource to conduct our business. Just as in business, capital is treated with great care that same tender loving care has to be extended to all natural resources
What makes the ITC group green? Why makes the ITC hotel group extensively practise the’ green’ philosophy?
The group read the writing on the wall about the current challenges and about sustainable development, nearly 21 years back and since then it has been learning, getting inspired by nature and adopting sustainable development practices, also called cleaner production practices, or green practices.
If we do not save or spend money judiciously from our monthly earnings what happens to our future growth and development? More or less the financial principles which we practice everyday needs to be applied to overall development.
Do you think going green will help the bottom line and help Indian hoteliers improve business?
If we reduce our water consumption, there is a saving in water and energy costs. If you avoid creating waste, you avoid waste handling costs. Eco-efficiency helps in higher profitability and will help the industry to remain in business and also keep the bottom-line dark in colour. Tourists have now started looking for eco-responsible organisations to patronise, hence the numbers of such people will increase and they will vote with their wallets.
What strategies do you ensure that ITC hotels in the group follow set standards?
ITC Welcomgroup was recognised in 1999 by Business World as the most eco-responsible hotel chain. The chain which practices sustainability beyond its boundaries, by engaging with all its stakeholders like suppliers, community, local government schools. It is the only hotel chain with a dedicated Welcomenviron website giving simple cost effective inputs to different stakeholders to lead a sustainable lifestyle.
The chain practices enlightened sustainable development philosophy, however in a large organisation to take the vision down to the grass root level requires a strong management system and procedures for continuity, and most importantly, that all its associates constantly raise the bar of sustainability beyond the stipulated legislated standards specified by states. In a manner of speaking we have a internal policy of working beyond compliance.
What are the best practises that you have implemented so far that have improved the functioning of ITC hotels?
Firstly, we have reduced our water consumption by approximately 40%. By introducing rain water harvesting, when it was not mandatory, installing sewage treatment plants, initiating the concept of water swap, use of drip devices, using waterless urinals in our head office (the ITC Green Centre at Gurgaon) and introducing water audits.
Secondly, we have reduced energy consumption by approx 12 to 15 % through a slew of energy saving methods like use of daylight, VFD-variable frequency drive motors, have shifted to CFL and LED lights, installed CFC chillers of hi-energy efficiency.
What would be your advice to other hoteliers looking to tread the ‘green path?’ What challenges do you foresee?
The green path has three trajectories- low, medium and high cost. Depending on financial circumstances hotels can start anywhere suitable. It is important to move away from upfront costs, to life cycle analysis and life cycle costs. In the ITC Green centre (a LEED platinum rated) building we have reduced our energy consumption by 51% and water consumption by 40 % by design intent.
Being pioneers, we had a cost overrun of 15% which we will recover in five years time.
The next two green buildings which came up after ours had a cost overrun of 8% and 4% respectively, which is indicative of the trend of declining costs.
The challenges do exist. People get intimidated easily and assume that adopting green standards is difficult and expensive. The idea is not to get intimidated.
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