The Fairmont hotel chain, which has 56 properties across the globe, announced this week it has joined the WWF Climate Savers program with an aim of cutting brandwide carbon emissions by 20% by 2013.
The Climate Savers program includes over 20 multi-national corporations, including IBM, Nike and Coca cola, all of whom are aiming to achieve a combined carbon emissions cut of 14 million tonnes every year. In order to reduce the environmental impact of the Fairmont Hotels, the chain has committed to updating hotel design standards to incorporate LEED standards, will be encouraging suppliers to provide green products and will be seeking a new LEED Gold standard home for its corporate offices in Canada.
Large hotel chains are often some of the worst culprits of greenwashing in the travel industry, but the Fairmont Hotel chain is one of the few brands that has made some real green efforts, and has been doing so for around 20 years; and although the chain doesn't have a stand out eco-friendly hotel yet, many of the brand's properties do feature some forward thinking green initiatives.
The Fairmont Southampton in Bermuda, for instance, features a rain and gray water recycling system and an on-site reverse osmosis plant, which helps to greatly reduce the hotel's water use. The Fairmont Sonoma in California features an on-site worn farm, which not only keeps food waste from the land fill, but also provides organic fertilizers for the hotel grounds; and the Fairmont St Andrews in Scotland converts its used cooking oil into biodiesel for the hotel shuttle bus and grounds vehicles.
Several other hotels take part in wildlife conservation efforts. In Hawaii the Fairmont Orchid helps fund marine reef research; in Boston staff at the Fairmont Copley Plaza have aided researchers with attaching transmitters to track snowy owls, and the Fairmont Le Manoir Richelieu in Quebec launched a program to encourage guests to adopt a Beluga Whale.
The partnership with WWF is a welcome move, but as a luxury hotel chain, the Fairmont brand still has some way to go before they can truly reduce their environmental impact and claim to be a green hotel chain. However, the brand is setting the pace in terms of eco-friendly initiatives for other luxury hotel chains and will hopefully encourage other chains to improve their green efforts.
Fairmont Hotels and Resorts
World Wildlife Fund Climate Savers Program
For More Information on Green Hotels, Go To Greenlodge.Org
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