Europe’s ‘Green’ leader puts Ireland firmly on the international map of sustainable hotel practices...
Sandymount Hotel, Dublin’s largest family run hotel, has yet again been awarded ‘Europe’s Leading Green Hotel’, scooping the award for a third year running at the prestigious World Travel Awards.
Triple award winning Sandymount Hotel, famed for its sustainable hotel practices, beat stiff competition from some of the world’s most renowned hotels including ICE Hotel in Sweden, Vila Vita Parc in Portugal, Eagles Palace in Greece and Angel’s Marmaris, Turkey, to put Ireland firmly on the international map, setting award-winning standards for environmental friendly hotels worldwide.
Renowned as the "Oscars" of the travel industry, the World Travel Awards recognise leaders across all sectors of the global travel and tourism industry. A special World Travel Awards 2019 red-carpet event took place at the picturesque Belmond Reid’s Palace in Madeira last night. In attendance were father and son duo, John and Gerard Loughran, Family Directors at Sandymount Hotel, to celebrate their prestigious win:
“The team at Sandymount Hotel are delighted to scoop the award for ‘Europe’s Leading Green Hotel’ for a third year running. We’ve come a long way since we first became more environmentally aware and year on year, we have progressed our sustainable approaches to ensure that we are consistently improving and minimising any negative effect our procedures and systems have on the environment.
Our dedicated in-house ‘green’ team has been tremendous, researching and instilling new measures to offer our best environmentally friendly practices, in line with our overall guest offerings and experiences. In an age where the environment has truly become an emotive topic, green travel is on the rise with travellers inspired to choose eco-friendly travel options as they think more about conservation and sustainability. We are honoured to play our part in protecting the Earth, whilst also offering an exceptional hospitality experience. We would also like to congratulate our friends at EPIC for their fantastic ‘Europe’s Leading Tourist Attraction’ win. A great night for the Irish hospitality and tourism industry as we celebrated our success on an international stage.”
In 2013, Sandymount Hotel took an eco-friendly and sustainable approach to achieve a greener, cleaner hotel by reducing both energy and water consumption. Fast forward to 2019 and the ‘green’ award winning Sandymount Hotel is the European front-runner.
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As part of the waste prevention system, the Loughran family and green team members have reduced, re-used and recycled. 95% of the hotel’s waste is now recycled • The hotel uses biodegradable compostable coffee cups and lids. When catering for large conferences and events and with busy guests looking to grab a coffee on the go, it’s important to the hotel that these are 100% compostable
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And…only 100% compostable eco-friendly straws are used in the Line Out Bar#
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The hotel collects and recycles soap and toiletries discarded in the hotel every day and through the global ‘Clean the World’ recycling programme, these items are distributed, preventing millions of hygiene-related diseases worldwide
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Did you know? A tap dripping at 1 drip per second wastes up to 25 litres in one day! Modifications were made throughout the hotel including the installation of aerator shower heads, taps and urinals are sensor activated, rainwater is harvested on roof for use in the garden - reducing water consumption by 20%
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Through its sustainable approach, 23% of the electricity used by the hotel comes from renewable sources, whilst the hotel now uses 22% LESS electricity than it did in 2013, largely due to a switch to 100% energy efficient lightbulbs, bedroom electrics are controlled by key cards, hand dryers in public areas are operated by sensor
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The hotel uses rechargeable batteries and ‘recycle’ abandoned books in our free Wee library
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The hotel use a purchasing policy to buy local where possible and choose suppliers who will take back their packaging for re-use
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The hotel’s head chef regularly reviews his menus to avoid food waste and takes care not to order, prepare or serve more than is required. Plus, the kitchen’s vacuum packer and cooking oil filter help cut out unnecessary waste
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There are recycling bins on all corridors to encourage guests to separate waste
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The hotel established a paid partnership with Camara Education to take away old computers, delete the contents of the hard drive and then send them to schools and youth centres in Africa
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Similarly, the hotel works with eco-mattresses on a paid basis to remove all old mattresses to recycle the various components
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The hotel offers rewards and incentives to guests who help the hotel to take a ‘greener’ approach i.e. housekeeping opt-out.
Article Published: 11/06/2019