HOTREC | Energy Efficiency Report

4. Train and engage your staff

Active participation of the staff and management is an essential aspect of any strategy to increase energy

efficiency and reduce consumption. Behavioural change is the most cost-effective way and a major step to

reach objectives in this field.

Staff information and training on energy efficiency and sustainability needs to be provided. This will help

ensuring that every staff will be equipped to assist in implementing the energy policy and achieving the energy

performance goals when carrying-out daily operational activities. This is essential to ensure that the hospitality

business make the most of the investments made and to eliminate all avoidable energy losses.

Staff training has a direct and immediate positive impact on energy consumption and efficiency. Besides, it

also has a highly positive inspirational impact on staff given the clear societal commitment it entails, leading

to additional professional motivation. Information and training should ideally cover various fields, such as:

awareness of the environmental impact of the business activities, how to contribute concretely to making energy

savings and raising energy efficiency during daily activities, monitoring savings, how to communicate to guests

the enterprise’s efforts in energy efficiency and how guests can help to support sustainability, etc. This could be

part of HR planning for employees.

5. Regular maintenance of equipment

It is essential that all the business/building’s technical equipment are regularly inspected, serviced and

maintained. Some of this will be carried out under regular maintenance agreements but simple inspections may

be carried out by staff during their normal duties. A regular servicing and maintenance of the business/buildings

technical equipment is crucial to ensure that energy performance remains high.

6. Implement energy efficient operational practices without any costs

Many improvements can be brought at no costs simply by implementing energy efficient practices into daily

operational activities affecting guest rooms, kitchens, laundry, front office, etc. A good energy management

policy will ensure that these practices are concretely implemented. Examples of such energy efficient operational

practices are provided in this brochure (see pages

7. Engage your guests

Guests havean important role toplay todecrease energy consumptions. Therefore, it is important tocommunicate

to them that the hospitality business they choose is committed to sustainability and energy efficiency, and how

can they easily contribute to the goal of having a more sustainable hospitality experience.

A good energy management policy will consider how to engage guests by raising their awareness about the

environmental/energy policy of the business and will encourage them to adopt simple sustainable actions about

heating/cooling, window opening, switching lights off, electricity, etc. A variety of communication means may be

used (e.g. leaflets in the room, stickers on appliances or switches), as long as the information is not too technical.

8. Evaluate progresses

Based on the energy profile established initially, and on the actions taken as part of the energy management

policy, it is important to evaluate progresses made towards achievements of the goals set in the energy policy. It

will imply measuring results so far, analysing current performances and compare them to the baselines. This will

allow to evaluate the effectiveness of your action plan, review it accordingly and share with staff best-practices.

Making tourism more resource efficient: guidance and solutions to raise energy efficiency in the european hospitality industry