Background:
In recent years, most businesses have been striving to minimize their environmental footprint driven by increased cost and environmental concern. In a response to this, consumers and regulatory entities are demanding that hotel operators make an effort to minimize the environmental impact of their lodging operation. Doing so correctly will have a positive ecological, environmental and financial consequence. Hotel managers are looking for ways to reduce the use of water, maximizing the efficiency of electrical equipment, as well as minimizing the waste generated by the operation, all this without negatively affecting guest comfort.
Assignment.
You are the new property operations manager of the 450 room Xavier Hotel. The GM has called you in to her office and informed you of new corporate initiatives to make efforts to make the operation more sustainable. The GM tells you that you need to review the operational efficiency of the hotel and make recommendations to meet the new environmental standard set by the corporate office.
You need to respond to her in a professional letter highlighting your proposed action to minimize resource use in the three areas noted i.e. water, energy and waste. Your report must include actual information from your research into ways to reduce resource use. Therefore, to do well on the GMs new assignment you should include a reasonable dollar value associated with all proposed upgrades for cost savings.
For example: If you save 15 gallons per person per day with your improvements for the 450 rooms which are occupied 72% of the time with 1.4 people per occupied room, how much is your annual saving in gallons and dollars?
The areas of focus:
Water. (Water costs $6.23 per 1000 gallons)
Describe in detail what you would propose to the GM to do with the property to increase efficiency, and reduce waste for the following categories:
1. Discuss the reduction in gallons used per occupied room i.e. what is a normal usage per person and how can it be reduced.
a. What steps will you propose to reduce usage structurally i.e. changing fixtures.
b. What water saving programs would you install for both guests and employees to follow?
c. What would the subsequent savings be on an annual basis in dollar$? Give the GM a calculation of your proposed changes and how much will the hotel save on an annual basis.
d. How much would the changes cost for all 450 rooms?
Energy. (Electricity costs $0.14 per Kwh in RI)
2. Electricity is used for: lighting, vertical transport (elevators), pumps, refrigeration and multiple facets of HVAC.
a. What will you propose to do to maximize the electrical efficiency? (For example, change out inefficient light bulbs, outdated equipment, preventative maintenance etc.)
b. Calculate the proposed savings, including the cost of updating equipment and labor.
c. Perform a return on investment (ROI) made to improve efficiency.
d. ROI = (gain from upgrade cost of upgrade) / cost of upgrade
Waste. (Tipping fees are $136 per 4yards of solid waste)
3. Hotel operations generate large amounts of garbage and other waste. Any reduction for garbage generated will go directly to the bottom line.
a. What recommendations would you propose to reduce the amount of solid waste?
b. How do procurement procedures affect solid-waste creation?
c. How might a recycling program save the hotel money? What might the concern about guest perception of the hotel positive or negative?
d. What might guest demand hotel operators do to minimize waste?
