1 Hotel cover.indd - Nicola Cottam

Key Issues: The environment
Last year, Thomson Holidays awarded its Green Medals to a number of hotels across the world that had given
due respect to environmental issues. “We hope that by showing recognition for the hotels that are managed with
consideration for the environment that more hotels will be encouraged to strive for good environmental practices
and achieve standards required for Green Medal status,” said Thomson managing director Peter Rothwell at the
ceremony.
Against this backdrop, Starwood Investment Group, the firm led by financier Barry Sternlicht, declared that it was
to open a new eco-friendly hotel brand. Called 1 Hotel and Residences, it promises to combine environmental
best practice with its architecture and interior design with “impeccable service and luxurious comfort”.
Sternlicht was bullish: “While some hotel brands pay lip service to the environment by asking guests to reuse towels,
and adding plants to a lobby, 1 is not using eco-friendly jargon simply as a marketing tool. Our intention with 1
is to build hotels and residences that are truly green and minimise their impact on their environment.”
Work is scheduled to begin on 15 such 1 hotels across the US over the next year, with the first, sited in Seattle, to
be operational in 2008.
Closer to home, government advisor, Sir Nicholas Stern, Head of the Government Economics Service, delivered
a report that was every bit as significant as Gore’s movie. Where Gore was operating from something of a moral
standpoint, Stern’s message was purely monetarily motivated. Essentially, he said that if the world didn’t wise up
to the environment, global warming could wipe around 20% from worldwide GDP due to natural disasters and
refugee crises that would be generated by a rise in sea levels. But he offered a stitch in time: invest 1% of global
GDP now in carbon reduction measures and disaster could be dodged.
While Stern did not directly address the hotel industry, his report will have ramifications. Up to 50% of carbon
emissions in the UK are generated from buildings. According to the Carbon Trust, the supply chain to the Hotel,
Catering and Pub category is the largest in terms of carbon emissions, responsible for 8.3 million tonnes annually.
And the recreation and leisure industry pumps out some 31.6 million tonnes of carbon (mtc) per year, the
largest single category by sector.
Nationally, Friends of the Earth forecast that by the end of 2006, the nation would have generated 156mtc (million
tonnes carbon), up from 153mtc in 2005. While the government is adamant it will meet its Kyoto commitments,
its manifesto promises to cut carbon emissions by 20% from 1990 levels look ever-closer to going up in a puff of
sooty, sulphurous diesel smoke.
Expect a bee in its bonnet, then. Just as local governments are eyeing up 4x4s in the war on carbon, so too is the
national government looking for low hanging fruit on which to pass legislation and fiscal measures. The Chancellor
is, on the one hand, known to favour technology rather than legislation as the cure for our environmental
woes. But he also knows that applied well, legislative carbon clampdowns are a vote winner. Hence, in his 2006
budget, he announced that fuel duty on short haul flights would be raised from £5 to £10, and from £20 to £40
on long haul journeys.
March 2007 Hotel Report Guide to UK Hotels l © William Reed Publishing 22