Business

Treediate

DffiTi[:x3,;Ti*t$yj"*:t*f#'"."i,','3ffi itr*severe water stress by that time. And there'splenty the hospitality seaor, which currentlyuses around 4O0 million cubic metres ofwatereveryyear - thaf s equivalent to 100,000 Olym-pic swimming pools -can doto help.

Indeed, according to the EnvironmentAgency, hotels have the potential to reducethe amount ofwater consumed by up to 50%if they have a strong water managementprogramme in place. Not only would this cuttheir footprint in half, the cost savings wouldalso be signficant, with water accotrnting for10% of utility bills in many hotels and mostproperties paying for the waterthey consumetwice (first by prucJrasing fresh water and thenby disposing ofit as waste water.)

Yet, up until now, water consewationhasn tbeen a huge priority across the UK's hospitalifsector, with manyhotels and restaurants pay-ing more attention to issues like food waste andrecyding than cutting down theirwater usage.

"Although businesses can see what they'respending on water in black and white, forsome, because Britain does not generallystnrggle for water and it is not as expensiveas energy, or indeed food, it is not a priority,"says Tom Thnner ofthe Sustainable Restau-rant Association (SRA).

Considerate Hoteliers has noticed a similar trend, although the team have also seen

28 | The Caterer | 18 September 2015

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.#With demand for waterset to outstrip suppty by40% by 2030, hospitalitybusinesses must movequick to start saving..$pdthe choice is as financial[yAS ethically sound.Elly Earls reports

Meanwhile, more water than necessary isalso used for tasks like washing dishes, dean-ing beer lines, washing floors and wipingdown surfaces. Plus, washing machines caqg-use up to 50 litres per wash and a n-urning tabetween eight and 12 litres per minute.

use en extre four litresof water per day"things start to improve in recent months."We noticedthatin a1lthe applications for ourawards this year, there was a huge amount ofachievement in the recycling and food wastesections, so hotels have really come a long wayin that area and I take my hat offto them,"says Considerate Hoteliers partner Xenia zuHohenlohe. "But, they also all said that theirpriority for the next year was water manage-ment; they've understood it's another issuethey need to look at."

Where is westage heppenirg?So where is most ofthe wastage taking place)Unsurprisingly, it's kitchens, bathroomsand deaning that top the list for restaurants,according to the SRA. While the main sourcesofwastage in kitchens are washing-up water(known as 'black water' , as it can t be re-used) ,

inefficienttaps, dishwashers and steam ovens,and grey water from laundry rinsing dishesand handwashing (which isn t recycled), if s

improperly functioning toilets and sinks thatwaste the most water in bathrooms. Indeed,a tap that leaks one drop every second will usean extra fourlitres ofwater per day.

In hotels, spas and swimming pools are 4sobig culprits, with a swimming pool fbtenti$yincreasing fresh water consumption ih a f$igehotel by up to 107o and the average spa guests.using six towels per spa visit. "Those six tow-iels have to be washed, so it's not just thdtvat&you re using as youire having your massage; '

it's also the huge amounts of water needed .to clean everything," zu Hohenlohe explaird;adding that housekeeping is another area ;_where"i-prorem"nts cldibemade. :

"Often when cleaning a room, the toile'might be flushed up to five times and anothercommon process is to let the shower run onhotto steamtheroom," orplains Fran Hughes,,head ofprogrammes at the Intemational Tour-ism Partnership (ITP). "Therefore, it could- 'o*

oftenbethe case thattherds morewaterbeing. )usedwhenthe guests are outofthe room than !when they're acrually in it."

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feter, neasure and uonitorBefore doing anything else, finding out howmuch water is being used and where it'sbeing wasted has to be the first step. As Tan-ner stresses: "Like with al1 environmentalefficiency, the three 'Ms' are absolutely key

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- metering, measuring and monitoring -so we advise installing a water meter so thattargets and strategies can be set."

Once water use is being measured, there areseveral tools available to hoteliers and restau-rateurs that can help them understand theirwater footprint and, therefore, where theyneed to make improvements - ConsiderateHoteliers' 'Conserve' too1, for example.

"Without having concrete data and factsand figures, people are often a bit difficultto convince. But the minute we have hotel-iers using the Conserve tool, seeing howmuch water they are wasting and how thatcan then be addressed, it's a different story"zu Hohenlohe says.

Soon, this will also be aligned with theHotel Water Measurement Initiative (HWM I),a tooi which will standardise the way theindustry measures water consumption.currently being developed by ITP. "We'recurrently in full planning mode and will beiaunching the new methodology in Septem-ber next year," Hughes says.

$mall ehanges, big GiffereraceOnce businesses know how much they'rewasting andwhere, it's time to put strategies inplace to tum things round, and it's often the lit-t1e things that can make the biggest difference.

"Staffeducation is absoiutely key," stressesTanner. "Train staffto think about how theyuse water. It is not enough simply to install

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*.ater-efficient technologies - investing inirese technologies will see the biggest retumcn investment ifthey are coupled with effec--i e behaviour change."

In hotels, this could involve training house-ieeping staff on how many times to flush:ne toilet while cleaning or enforcing towel:e'rse programmes, which currently are often:mbracedby guests butignoredbyemployees.

\\-hen it comes to water-efficient technolo-sres, some of the options for businesses are:-,\-3ter aerators for sink faucets, which reduce-le volume of water but maintain the same::essure; grey-water recycling technologies:::d rain-water harvesting systems, which:an reduce mains water consumption by up.- 1A?/o and 30"2 respectively and dual-flush:.,r.iets. which use signifi cantly les s water thans'-::s1e-flush toilets.

On top ofthis, cleaning can be made much::,lre emcient by dry-wiping surfaces before

-:::p cleaning, cleaning floors with a mop

' -:i bu&et rather than a hose, and pre-soaking

:-l--en' in standing water rather than under=:--:ringtap.

{rld. fina1ly, making sure your supply chain::::rers are acting as responsibly as you are can:::ake a huge difference. "You can do so much:r hen vou look at your supply chain and work:.:th companies that care about how water is:eing used," zu Hohenlohe remarks. "Looka: laundry service company Berendsen, for=*rample; they've saved over two billion litres of'.r-ater because they made theirlar.rndry services:.nore water efficient, which is the equivalentof-:re alnual water usage of 36,000 people."

C o mmunicating with guestsParlnering with water charities is anothereleat u,ay for UK hospitality businesses to save

:oth rvater and money, as well as contributing:o campaigns in regions where water is much::ore of a problem than it is at home.

Carlson Rezidor, for example, has recently:eamed up with water aid charity )ust a Dropa::d now encourages guests to forego daily-:ren changes in exchange for a donation to-jre chariry while members ofwhole World\\ ater can contribute to those in need by filter-.re. bottling and selling their own water andconating 10% ofproceeds tothe charity, which*iJl then go to approved clean and safe water:ro jects around the world.

Initiatives like these not only contributero solving the world water supply problem,',i.er-aiso raise awareness ofthe issue amongcustomers - not that it's necessarily an easy-ask to get guests engaged.

-lt's about being real when you're com-n.Lunicating with guests," Hughes advises.-There are different ways of incentivisingslests and so it's a matter oflooking at yourrr:siness and thinking where are we, what do'.ve do, who are our customers and what do we:hink is going to appeal to them. It might bephilanthropic motivation or it might bes,ightly more selfish or just the plain facts,Dut ,vou've got to see what wiil resonate; onemessage doesn't fit a11."

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Park Plaza llllestminster Bridge London

As an active member of theITB Cartson Rezidor Group's

hotels a[[ around the worldare fulty committed to waterstewardship, and its Park

Plaza Westminster Bridgeproperty in London

is certainly no exception.Among many other water-

saving initiatives, the property

has instatled the Waste2waterfood digester to convert foodwaste to grey water, which can

be safety disposed of via thehotelS drain system. There has

also been 1,200 eco showerheads fitted, atong with flowrestrictors in guest rooms thatreduce water wastage by over44,000 cubic litres per year,

and CO2 emissions by over280 tonnes per year.

The hotel also has its ownon-site water bottting ptant,

recycling over one millionwater bottles each year. ltalso harvests waste waterfrom its in-house laundry and

swimming poo[, which is used

to flush a selection of toiletson site, reducing the need

for clean water.But Park Plaza Westminster

won't be stopping there. "We

have a green commitmentand ongoing plan to find and

implement ways to mitigateenvironmental energyimpact," explains hotelmanager Suai Binkaya.

"[Future plans include]tooking into different [aundrywashing facitities enabling

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us to use less chemicals,

again further reducing ourimpact on the environment,and investigating purchasing

shower timers which could be

an option for guests to use attheir discretion, to reduce the

time spent showering and thusreduce water consumption."

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