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Amit Castelino
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How do you ensure that all departments of the hotel function in sync with each other while adhering to your green norms?

Castelino: We have training and feedback sessions within various departments where inputs coming from down the line and are shared between the heads of various Departments.

Raj: In Marriott hotels we have a system called “ Environmentally Conscious Hospitality Operations (ECHO)”, which clearly indicates the various responsibilities of individual departments clearly. It also indicates the information flow that is needed from one department to the other. By adhering to the ECHO system we can establish synchronised operation among all the departments.

Thakur: We have an Environment committee which has volunteers from each department to drive home the message – someone who ensures all associates understand how the hotel’s environmental programs affect them.

The committee is chaired by the general manager, who clarifies the committee’s decision making authority and resources available. The environmental committee/champion is responsible for:
• leading the implementation of new programs
• ensuring environmental objectives are set
• encouraging associate participation
• compiling and communicating environmental results
• convening and chairing committee meetings on a regular basis

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COMMENT Comment on this article

Baljee: Green practices are implemented across the Royal Orchid properties, and Royal Orchid Hotels has adopted energy conservation measures in existing hotels and most importantly in the upcoming projects across the country.

• Although our hotels are not LEED certified, we are adopting measures which are leading to being certified as green buildings.
HVAC
• One of the most important measures in the air conditioning fields is the use of ozone friendly refrigerant gases. ROH is adopting measures to ensure that polluting CFC gases are not used in our hotels.
• CO2 monitoring is carried out in areas like the basements, where vehicle movement contributes to higher levels of CO.
• Energy conservation in public areas by use of motion sensors ensures that the air conditioning in areas which are not occupied will get switched off.
Hot Water Generation
• Hot water is normally produced by burning fuels in boilers or electric heating. ROH adopts measures to ensure trapping of natural energy sources for water heating. These include:
• Solar panels for hot water generation.
• De-superheaters in chilled water systems, whereby the waste heat from the chilling units is transferred to the domestic water. This ensures lower energy consumption for hot water generation as well as lesser load on cooling towers.
• Rain water collection pits are connected through a network and the ground water is re-charged through wells located around the property. This ensures that the storm water is effectively conserved, rather than get thrown into the city sewers.
Sewage treatment plant
• All the waste water generated from the toilets, kitchen and laundry is treated in an STP and is effectively used for landscaping, flushing and cooling towers for the A/C systems.
• Structural glazing
• High performance glass is used for structurally glazed areas, thus reducing the ingress of heat into the building and leads to lower air conditioning costs.

In competitive market conditions how do you promote and practise the ‘green’ philosophy?

Castelino: Though we can boast of use of CFLs (even dimmable CFLs) in the Guest Rooms we have not promoted our green philosophy as we still use R22 as our refrigerant for the AC Plant as we believe that this one area where we lag. However once we have replaced this system with a system that has got a low ODP and GWP we will be in a position where we will be way ahead in this race and there will be no stopping us then.

Raj: While we have the strong know-how of the environment friendly measures , in the present market we would like to use this tool as a edge over our competition.

Our philosophy is not just to adhere to these standards but to become a worldwide leader in the hospitality industry . When it comes to our own practice, we have implemented various activities like recycling the water and solid wastes, usage of automatic taps in the cloak rooms, introduction of energy efficient equipments like variable frequency drives (VFD ) for high capacity equipments.

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