Bye Bye Bottle - Scandic Hotels Turn To The Tap
by April Streeter, Gothenburg, Sweden on 03.25.08
Scandinavia's Scandic Hotel chain wasn't even featured in a recent New York Times review of hip hotels attempting to reduce their eco-impact, yet Scandic has gone far beyond encouraging guests to forgo sheet-washing and towel changing. By switching to renewable energy, sorting all trash and eschewing all individual packaging (both for guests and in operations) the chain managed to reduce CO2 levels 30 percent compared to 1996 baselines.
Scandic now will stop selling bottled water in all of its 141 conference and hotel locales - it reckons it sells 3.6 million .33 liter water bottles each year - and the move will "save" the chain 160 tons of CO2 yearly. That helps with Scandic's goal to halve its CO2 emissions by 2011 and be completely carbon neutral by 2025 - certainly years if not decades ahead of its home countries Norway (2030) and Sweden (2050). Luckily Nordic nations have some of the best tap water in the world. The hotel will offer guests both still and sparkling filtered water at its restaurants. Via ::Newsdesk (Swedish) Photo courtesy shrff14 at flickr
I spent a few days at a hotel recently, and found the "green" features to be greenwashing. I agree that you don't need to wash your sheets and towels every day, but I think most hotels only encourage it as a way to save money. They also had a "green" keycard (recyclable, aka disposable). I didn't spot a single CF lightbulb, and the windows were poorly insulated.