Following the Silver award received by The Ritz-Carlton, Powerscourt in 2010, a Gold Standard recognition was this year awarded to the hotel by the Green Hospitality Awards on account of the improvements made by the hotel and the Environmental Action Plan focusing on energy, waste and water management.
Environmental upgrades at the hotel include increasing recycling rates by more than 50% from 37% to 75%. The engineering team has focused on radically reducing energy usage through investing in the upgrading of the Building Management System. Light bulbs in guest rooms and public areas were changed to LED from incandescent making the hotel 75% LED/low energy lighting. A tree management plan was put in place to reforest the grounds to native Irish trees such as Ash and Oak and improve the biodiversity of the hotel’s grounds. Sub-metering the entire hotel also allowed better control of where all the energy is being consumed, identifying opportunities to reduce and measure it more accurately
Guests are involved more when they are asked to join in the environmental pledge, towel and linen re-use programs and offering Green Meetings packages to conferencing guests. Furthermore the hotel has been successful in sustainable food sourcing by having at least 8 food items sourced locally and all of the culinary and restaurant teams are fully aware which food items these are in order to be able to communicate this to guests. Single portion packaged items have been removed from the buffet thus reducing unnecessary packaging and raw materials.
‘Greening Irish Hospitality’ is the focus and aim of the Green Hospitality Awards(GHA) which are now recognised as one of the most successful programmes in Europe. This is a voluntary programme that demonstrates leadership in environmental management within the hospitality sector.