Saving the environment can go with lower power bills, but many still reluctant to change
(SINGAPORE) In some parts of the world, conviction is driving hotels to go green. But, as several hotels in Singapore have concluded, common sense points to the same path.
The Far East Organization, for example, realised that its corporate electricity bill for all its properties across Singapore was $33 million a year. 'Imagine if we can cut that by 10 per cent,' said Chia Swee Cheng, assistant director of the group's central engineering & operations department.
And so its Changi Village hotel has new boiler and chiller systems in place and a far more efficient energy use.
Over at the Grand Hyatt, Singapore's first plant to produce electricity, steam and chilled water at a hotel is under construction. Along with the solar panels planned for a new garden conference room, the plant could slash Hyatt's energy use by a third and save it $800,000 in bills.
While critics say that many local hotels pay only lip service to eco-programmes, there are others, led by Hyatt, who are changing mindsets, going green - and finding that it pays.
'My impression is that all the hotel operators are serious about sustainability, but not necessarily all the owners, who have to pay for changes,' said Robert Hacker of Horwath, a hotel consultancy. 'Generally, all the international chains are taking on board green principles.'
The Regent Singapore, for example, in late 2005 replaced a diesel boiler for heating water with a heat exchanger that produces hot and cold water at the same time. This has cut energy use by a fifth.
And at the Shangri-La, energy use improved over 10 per cent through better work processes, such as using small ovens to prepare meals on demand, rather than keeping a large oven fired up all day just to reheat food.
But critics like Tay Kheng Soon, architect and promoter of socially and environmentally conscious architecture in Singapore since the 1970s, say Hyatt is the only energy-efficient hotel in Singapore.
And though the National Environment Agency handed out the new Energy Smart label to some hotels last month, that is only a starting point, said Mr Tay. A more basic change might come about, in his opinion, if there were incentives to use renewable energy sources, like wind and solar energy.
Many hotels 'hand-wave' over cosmetic eco-programmes, like using hybrid cars to ferry guests or planting trees, but miss the 'elephant in the room' - like the efficiency of their chiller systems - said Lee Eng Lock, general manager of Trane, a US-based energy solutions firm and an accredited Energy Service Company (ESCO) here.
The Hyatt sets the bar but there is no reason why others should not follow suit, with high returns and backed by bank guarantees, said Mr Lee.
But business in the hotel sector is negotiated on the basis of relationships, so it is not necessarily the most efficient solutions that get selected, he said.
Luxury hotels in Singapore run at an energy intensity of 427 kilowatt hours of electricity per square metre of gross floor area, according to a study by the National University of Singapore (NUS) last year. This is down from the 468 KWh/m2 reported by Apec in 1999, but pales beside the under-300 KWh/m2 averages achieved in parts of Europe and Australia.
In other words, local hotels could be using up to 40 per cent more electricity than ideal.
Dr Lee Siew Eang, head of NUS's Energy Sustainability Unit and leader of the study, recalls some four and five-star hotels saying during the study that energy efficiency was 'not relevant' to them - since, as 'posh hotels', it was 'their duty to be extravagant'.
Many hotel managers were not aware of how much energy their buildings were using. One hotel, which had wanted to apply for an eco-award, was found by NUS to be using an exceptionally high 800 KWh/m2, said Dr Lee. That's almost twice the industry average. According to the Singapore Hotel Association (SHA), which represents about 90 per cent of the total number of gazetted hotel rooms here, most hotels in Singapore pay attention to water and energy conservation. 'In the long run, it makes good corporate sense for hotels to go green as it not only saves the environment but reduces costs,' said SHA president Kay Kuok.
Whether the message has sunk home is another matter. With the two integrated resorts set to help up Singapore's hotel room stock by over 10 per cent by 2010, it is a critical time to move into energy efficiency, said NUS's Dr Lee. 'The designs are being drawn right now. If we miss this chance, we have to wait another 20 years.'
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