Channel NewaAsia 1 Mar 08;
SINGAPORE: Ten hotels in Singapore have received the thumbs-up for being green. They were recently given the ASEAN Green Hotel awards by the ASEAN Tourism Forum.
The inaugural awards recognises the ten most environmentally friendly hotels in each ASEAN country.
The winners from Singapore are Grand Hyatt, Allson Hotel, Shangri-La Hotel, The Regent, Sheraton Towers Singapore, Royal Plaza on Scotts, Furama City Centre, Intercontinental Singapore, Conrad Centennial and Rasa Sentosa Resort.
When Sheraton Towers Singapore first asked guests to cut down on the use of towels and linen to save the environment, it did not go down well.
Steven Long, general manager of Sheraton Towers, said: "We faced many challenges as customers misunderstood the intent of the programme and thought that the hotel was not doing its job by cleaning the rooms and changing the linen."
But that has changed in recent years.
One-in-five guests, mostly Europeans and Americans, now use the 'Care for the Environment' card provided by the hotel which instructs housekeepers to only tidy the bed and not change the sheets.
That saves the hotel about S$2,000 per month on washing linen.
"The savings on washing extra linen go to saving water... a responsible citizen has a responsibility to take care of the environment as a whole," said Mr Long.
Over 2,000kg of paper products and glass are also recycled every month.
The hotel spent S$80,000 to have pipes specially installed in 2007 to channel Newater into the laundry rooms and the cooling tower for all the air conditioners in the hotel.
Besides being cleaner, the hotel said the price of Newater is only a third of the price of domestic water which is why it has plans to pipe Newater into all the bathrooms in the future.
Together with nine other hotels in Singapore, Sheraton Towers was certified 'green' based on 11 criteria by the ASEAN Tourism Standards for Green Hotels.
These include the use of green products, energy and water efficiency, air quality control and waste management.- CNA/so
