The Caterer interview
Karin Sheppard The managing director for Europe at IHG
Hotels & Resorts speaks to Emma Lake about creating the hotel giant’s first net zero carbon hotel and driving towards a sustainable future
Voco Zeal Exeter Science Park is IHG Hotels and Resorts’ first lifecycle net zero carbon hotel, developed in partnership with Zeal hotels – how did the project came about? It is a very interesting project for us, and one that is very much in line with IHG Hotels and Resorts’ strategy in terms of how we can look after the planet and the communities of tomorrow. The hotel itself is going to be 142 keys and
it’s based in Exeter Science Park, which is a very appropriate location to do something rather outstanding. Zeal hotels has spent a lot of time researching and really understanding how to get to a net zero carbon hotel. Zeal has worked on a number of initiatives
that enable us to essentially offset the carbon emissions resulting from building the hotel in how it will operate afterwards. These include a range of technical measures, for example, photovoltaic panels on all sides of the hotel, and energy conservation measures.
Can you tell us more about how you will offset the emissions? There’s been a lot of work around the energy sources that will be used, in this instance pho- tovoltaic panels, and in sourcing any energy that complements what’s produced by the building itself from renewable sources. Then it’s about the use of the space and
being really thoughtful about how the hotel is designed, such as having LED lights and zones which allow us to only heat and light what is being used operationally. Across IHG Hotels and Resorts we’re mov-
ing towards very low carbon. We’re using elec- tricity as much as possible rather than using old-fashioned boilers, so we’re having heat pumps installed and making sure kitchens are fully electrified. Many measures will come
together to drive the outcome. With so many different measurements, how are you recording and conveying this? That’s one of the things I think the industry is really grappling with. How can we get accu- rate measurements and also standardised measurements that we can communicate to customers? What Zeal has done is lean on existing approaches that are approved in the industry, so there’s a net zero carbon build- ings framework, which has been developed by the UK Green Building Council. Zeal is using that and other methods and being very specific about quantifying the use in the building as it’s being built and operationally afterwards. From an IHG perspective we have a plat-
form called Green Engage, which is in every one of our 6,000 hotels around the world. We use it to make sure every hotel measures and reports its energy use, month in, month out. We set targets annually for hotels to reduce their energy consumption and report it to us. What’s not in place is a common way of
doing that. There are many different platforms that will offer some sort of rating or ranking, but that’s one of the challenges in the indus- try. As a customer you can’t get a comparable ranking across hotels and we need to get to that because we know this is becoming increasingly important in their buying decision.
Are these targets having an impact across the estate? Yes, we are seeing energy reductions. I think it’s close to 15% down year-on-year, thanks to all the initiatives already implemented and the awareness we’re raising. I think hotel owners understand that this is important for three reasons. First, to protect the value of their assets, it is important to have a strategy for how to become more sustainable.
“We set targets annually for hotels to reduce their energy consumption and report it to us”
16 | The Caterer | 24 November 2023
www.thecaterer.com
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