Conservancy is a hot topic and takes many forms – reducing single-use plastic, minimising your carbon footprint and preserving clean water. City Lodge Hotel Group takes its role in addressing all three of these issues very seriously. We have managed to reduce our energy consumption as a group by 30% since 2011 and just last year, we rolled out solar projects at nearly 50% of our properties.
The next project we’re excited to get moving on is our drinking water solution!
The Goal
Travelling can be a tiring task, and it’s common to greet your guests with a bottle of water waiting for them in their room upon checking in. Sometimes these bottles don’t get touched, sometimes they get partially drunk, but the overall issue is that they, in general, create an unsustainable amount of plastic waste that City Lodge Hotel Group no longer wants to be associated with. We love the beautiful cities we operate in and plan to keep them that way – so are always looking for ways to limit our footprint. But this doesn’t not change the fact that many guests arrive thirsty, so what have we done in place of bottled water?
The Trial
We wanted to try something out – and we wanted to try it at one of our highest traffic hotels to see if it would work. We installed a specialised water dispenser in City Lodge Hotel at OR Tambo International that was able to supply guests with magnesium-enriched, chilled, still or sparkling water. This trial worked exceptionally and proved to be an acceptable replacement for bottled water, particularly considering the reduction in single-use plastic usage.
THE next steps
Since the trial worked so well, we are working to implement this solution into all of our properties by May/June 2020. So long, plastic bottles and hello water dispensers! We’re excited to see how guests react when seeing it for the first time; we hope our true heart for the environment shows through!
Be sure to keep an eye out, we have exciting news about further steps that we’re taking to reduce the amount of single-use plastic waste we generate!