Tag Archives: waste management

A new sustainable design policy for Fairmont Hotels & Resorts

Fairmont Hotels & Resorts is expanding its green commitments through a new sustainable design policy. In addition to promoting the use of recognized green building certification systems such as LEED, the policy includes new environmental criteria and checklists for renovation and retrofit projects, environmental consultation during the design brief and construction process, and the creation of a green-build best practices repository for use by Fairmont’s hotels, engineers, developers, project leads, and architects.

“We literally wrote the book on hotel sustainability and have been focused on making our properties as environmentally sound as possible, says president, Chris Cahill. “Now, we’re instituting formal design and construction guidelines for our pipeline of new hotel projects and ongoing capital agenda. Environmental stewardship is part of Fairmont’s DNA and we want to ensure it’s evident in all phases of our business.”

The program has been implemented at two Fairmont hotels. Fairmont Pittsburgh, the brand’s first LEED-certified hotel, incorporates energy efficient lighting and appliances; enzyme waste systems; furnishings and other guestroom amenities made from recycled, organic, or sustainable material; and the use of paints, adhesives, sealants, carpets, and fabrics with no or low emissions. Meanwhile, the Savoy in London (pictured) has a waste management system, as well as a heat and power plant that reduces the hotel’s reliance on the national grid by approximately 50 percent.

The policy is part of The Fairmont Green Partnership program, allowing the Group to meet and exceed guest expectations of operational sustainability. It focuses on improvements in waste management, sustainability, and energy and water conservation at Fairmont’s properties, and innovative community outreach programs involving local groups and partnership. (Source: Hospitality design.com)

The colors of Ikea Italy: blue, yellow and.. green!

Ikea Italy announced an environmental investment of € 20 million: 150,000 solar panels to be installed by the end of August 2011in each store so that to create a small solar power station. Clean, renewable, sustainable.

About 150,000 solar panels modules will be placed on a aluminum structure resting on the Ikea store roofs, and in Catania (Sicily), also on the bus shelters in the parking lot. An area as big as 16 football fields to cover about 10% of the electricity needs of Ikea Italy. The first floor (showroom) of all stores will be then lightened with this renewable energy. A total of 10,000,000 kWh of electricity, equal to the average consumption of 3,300 households will be produced each year with a reliable and innovative technology.

This will prevent the annual emission of approximately 4,000 tons of carbon dioxide, equivalent to the quantity of CO2 absorbed annually by 400 acres of tropical forest and the emissions of 3,300 cars travelling an average of 10,000 km. Another key point of the Company policy is to reduce waste and an effective use of raw materials, recycled materials or easy to recycle ones, natural and renewable energy, CO2 emission reduction thanks to a clever consumption, the optimization of facilities’operational activities and electricity from renewable sources (in 2010 equal to 83% of the total consumption).

When dealing with waste management, the goal is to reduce it thanks to the development of a less bulky packaging and a careful waste disposal collection so that to assure their almost full recycling. Ikea is bio too. In restaurants, the group includes more than 58 recipes and organic products from biological origin. In 2010, Ikea Italy purchased 2,080 tons of organic products (+38% compared to 2009). Ikea Italy is now the third third largest Ikea supplier company in the world after China and Poland, as stated by the managing director of Ikea Italy, Lars Petersson during a meeting in Milan. (Source. Greenbiz.it)

Green packaging: here’s some news

Fresh Worldwide Press, packaging, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

In our ECOFFEE experience, Green Packaging and waste management are two of the most difficult to handle issues for a retailer who wants to approach a greener and more sustainable business. Just a couple of years ago, it was very difficult to find packaging that could be both resistant, green and easy to recycle or compost. Now life has been made easier by smart companies which are offering to retailers plenty of products to satisfy the most demanding client: from corn cups to sugar-beet takeout containers, degradable packaging is forecast to expand an impressive 13.6 percent annually to $685 million in 2014.

Now let's talk about two very different kind of packaging, coffee cups and pizza cardboard. Coffee cups are not that common in Italy, where coffee is still serverd in the traditional ceramic "tazzina", but everywhere else in the world, it is a must for those who want to sip the hot drink while driving to office. The Repurpose One Cup  is a new insulated hot cup that is 100 percent certified compostable. The design requires no sleeve, uses 65 percent less CO2 than a disposable coffee cup to produce, and can be composted in 90 days in an industrial facility. If the cups are thrown away with regular trash, they will degrade in the landfill just like food waste. Traditional insulated cups are made by adding additional layers of paper; however, the One Cup keeps coffee (and other beverages) hot by applying patented insulation material to a single wall cup made of FSC-Certified paper.

Talking about pizza, here's the "Salvapizza", a prototype developed in Italy by a pool of experts. Salvapizza is made of white cardboard printed with food ink and this prototype allows consumers to heat the pizza in the microwave. Thanks to the side slots, the pizza "breathes", ensuring the right kind of ventilation during the heating process, hence preserving the pizza fragrance. In the prototyping of Salvapizza, special attention was paid to the possibility of recycling the used container. The cardboard can be in fact easily divided in two parts: the upper part can be detached and easily recycled in the paper waste container. A simple idea, but that can help recycling a lot of waste material, thinking that each year, the Italian production of cardboards for pizza sums up to almost 620 million units. (Source: Crispgreen and Marrai A Fura)