Environmental Measures

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Environmental measures forhotels environmentalmanagement systems

ISO 14001

Wilco W. ChanSchool of Hotel and Tourism Management,

Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong

Abstract

Purpose Implementation of environmental management systems (EMS) in hotels is gainingpopularity world-wide. ISO 14001, which is the only certifying document in the ISO 14000 series,provides guidelines to set up an EMS. However, there is a paucity of information about the actualenvironmental measures implemented in ISO 14001 certified hotels. Therefore, the purpose of thispaper is to identify and generalize the environmental measures undertaken by studied hotels and toevaluate the performance of these environmental measures.

Design/methodology/approach Three case studies were carried out to identify the greenmeasures undertaken in ISO 14001-certified hotels. Both qualitative and quantitative data werecollected and analyzed. Then, regression analysis was conducted to examine the relationship betweenmonthly utilities input (electricity, gas, fuel oil and water) and activity parameters.

Findings A total of 113 measures were identified, nearly half of which concern energyconservation. Results of multiple regression showed that R2 for different utilities varied. Theexplanatory power of equation was strong for electricity consumption, moderate for fuel gasconsumption, and weak for both gas and water consumption.

Practical implications The identified measures provide hoteliers with a thorough picture aboutthe actual environmental works involved in this internationally recognized EMS. Hotel operators andowners can use these measures as a reference either for applying EMS certification or for developingtheir own EMS.

Originality/value The paper, which was based on operational experiences from existing hotels,was a collaborative work between hospitality industry practitioners and educators. The paper is alsothe first of its kind to unveil the comprehensive environmental measures undertaken in city hotels withISO 14001 certification.

Keywords Environmental management, Hotels, Energy

Paper type Research paper

IntroductionEnvironmental Management System (EMS) as across the world has recently been morerecognized in the hotel industry. An environment management system is a way formanagement to deal with aspects that impact on the environment. It allows anorganization to control the impact of its activities, products or services on the natural

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at

www.emeraldinsight.com/0959-6119.htm

Support for the author from Mr Tamiyasu Okawa and Mr Jean-Marie Leclercq, the presentgeneral manager and ex-general manager respectively of The Hotel Nikko Hong Kong,Ms Paddy Lui, K. Wah Group and Mr Tan H. is gratefully acknowledged.

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Received 1 October 2007Revised 27 December 2007,21 June 2008,9 September 2008Accepted 9 December 2008

International Journal ofContemporary HospitalityManagementVol. 21 No. 5, 2009pp. 542-560q Emerald Group Publishing Limited0959-6119DOI 10.1108/09596110910967791


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environment. Steger (2000) defined an EMS as a transparent and systematic process,known corporate-wide, with the purpose of prescribing and implementingenvironmental goals, policies and responsibilities, as well as a regular auditing of itselements. Almost all hotels have implemented their in-house EMS or used efforts on

protecting the environment in hotels with varying degrees of intensity in the past fewdecades (Stipanuk, 1996). Kirks survey found that the major benefit of environmentalmanagement was the improvement in public image and better relationship with thelocal community (Kirk, 1995). However, many hoteliers with written environmentalpolicy saw the major benefit in financial management performance.

The ISO 14000, which is a series of international standards on environmentalmanagement, provides guidelines for the development of an EMS and the supportingaudit programme, as shown in Table I. It was introduced in 1996 as a result of the RioSummit on the Environment held in 1992, and later a new version was published in2004 (ISO, 2007). Within the entire series, the most well known ISO 14001 standardspecifies the actual requirement for an EMS. An organization can be certified by an

external certification authority against the ISO 14001 standard. The purpose of anEMS is clearly to bring a firm into alignment with its environmental policy and todemonstrate this to others (ISO, 1996). ISO 14001 certified EMS could be characterizedin terms of its policy, goals, objectives, organizational structure, assignedresponsibilities, procedures and operations, management review, and variousmethodologies. The EMS formed under the ISO14001 certification possesses asystematic structure as laid down in the ISO requirement. And the whole system isrelatively open and familiar to environment-related practitioners since there have beenimmense promotional coverage, workshops, seminars and literature. Up to the end of2005, there were over 110,000 ISO 14001 certified organizations worldwide, includingaround 600 hospitality organizations (ISO, 2006).

Recently some deluxe hotels such as the Shangri-la Hotel, Hotel Nikko, and GrandStanford Inter-Continental Hong Kong have achieved ISO 14001 accreditation. Thesame trend is happening in China. For instance, the Mission Hills Resort in Shenzhenand the World Trade Center Hotel in Hangzhou have also received the certification.Chan and Wong (2005) find that corporate governance and legislation play animportant role in affecting hotels intention to ISO14001 EMS certification. Theirfindings are more or less close to the proponents who advocate setting upenvironmental standard in general business. They have proposed a number of reasonsfor why firms should seek certification, such as improved regulatory compliance;increased market share and a potential for premium pricing within certain marketsegments; response to customer pressures and access to markets; cost reductions fromimproved efficiencies; and an enhanced reputation (Harrington and Knight, 1999; Tibor

and Feldman, 1996, pp. 27-42; Woodside, 2000).However, there is a paucity of information about the actual environmental measures

implemented in ISO14001 certified hotels. And these environmental measures mayserve as useful reference for other hotel operators to drive their environmental works.In light of this situation, this study aims to identify the environmental measuresundertaken by studied hotels, generalize environmental measures by hotels withISO14001, and evaluate the performance and the assessment methods of these bundlesof environmental measures.

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This paper has four sections. The first section discusses the case study design andmethodology including both qualitative and quantitative approaches. The qualitativeresearch refers to the development of preliminary checklist of environmental measures,its subsequent validation and the ways to analyze collected data to explore anyphenomenon. Then the paper proceeds to illustrate the quantitative study on theenergy performance of the studied hotels by using four sorts of estimation technique.

Environmental managementsystem (subcommittee 1)

ISO 14001 Environmental management systems specifications with guidance for use

ISO 14004 Environmental management systems generalguidelines on principles, systems and supportingtechniques

Environmental auditing(subcommittee 2)

ISO 14010 Guidelines for environmental auditing generalprinciples

ISO 14011 Guidelines for environmental auditing auditprocedures auditing of environmentalmanagement systems

ISO 14012 Guidelines for environmental auditing qualification criteria for environmental auditors

ISO 14011 Guidelines for quality and/or environmentalmanagement systems auditing (this standardreplaces ISO 14010, 14011 and 14012 since 2002)

ISO 14015 Environmental management environmentalassessment of sites and organizations (EASO)

Environmental labeling(subcommittee 3) ISO 14020 Environmental labels and declarations generalprinciplesISO 14021 Environmental labels and declarations

self-declared environmental claims (Type IIenvironmental labeling)

ISO 14024 Environmental labels and declarations Type Ienvironmental labeling guiding principles andprocedures

ISO/TR 14025 Environmental labels and declarations TypeIII environmental declarations

Environmental performanceevaluation (subcommittee 4)

ISO 14031 Evaluation of environmental performance

ISO/TR 14032 Examples of environmental performanceevaluation

Life cycle assessment(subcommittee 5)

ISO 14040 Life cycle assessment principles andframework

ISO 14041 Life cycle assessment goal and scope definitionand inventory analysis

ISO 14042 Life cycle assessment life cycle impactassessment

ISO 14043 Life cycle assessment life cycle interpretationISO/TS 14048 Life cycle assessment data documentation

formatISO/TR 14049 Life cycle assessment examples of application

of ISO 14041 to goal and scope definition andinventory analysis

Source: ISO (2002)

Table I.The ISO 14000 series ofstandards

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The next section introduces some background information about the three studiedhotels Nikki, Shangri-la and the Grand Stanford. In the third section, the paperdiscusses the identified environmental measures and assesses the energy savingpotential resulting from the adoption of these measures. The concluding section

highlights the use of the findings to practitioners and offers ideas on ways thatmanagers can make regression analysis more easy-to-use in the hotel.

MethodologyCase study designIn hotel ISO 14001s areas, there has been little experience and data available,particularly regarding the environmental measures undertaken by certified hotels.Thus, intensive study of relevant cases was adopted to gain more insight into thisphenomenon as well as to look into the intensity plus the characteristics of thestudying EMS. By doing in this way, the study gathered sufficient information tocharacterize and explain the unique features of the cases, to point out the

characteristics that are common in several cases (Stake, 1994; Cunningham, 1997) aswell as to learn something new and important (Yin, 2003, pp. 15-16). Both qualitativeand quantitative methods were employed in these case studies.

Develop prototype check-listTo identify and validate the environmental measures undertaken by these three hotels,the study adopted a qualitative approach. First, earlier publications about hotelsenvironmental work were used as prototypes for developing a checklist ofenvironmental measures (International Hotels Environmental Initiatives (IHEI),1996). The reviewed documentation also encompassed environmental managementmanuals, periodic reports, trade journals, CD-ROMs, training materials, energyconsumption data sheets, energy-saving facilities catalogues, energy audit reports,energy conservation reports, and proposals for research findings.

Validity and accuracy checkMultiple sources of evidence including documentation, interviews and physicalartifacts were used as double check devices to ensure the construct of internalvalidity (Yin, 2003). During the interviews, the environmental measures beingdocumented in the prototype check list were cross-checked and confirmed by hotelstaff including the quality assurance manager, chief engineers, department managers,chief steward, and members of the hotels green committee. Then, physical artifactsof the environmental measures were observed as part of the field visit. These sorts ofrepeated checking activities on data collected increase internal validity and

objectivity of the study.

Categorization based on 3RThe study further captured and transcribed the relevant resources for setting up EMS,mentioned in the previous, secondary data, onto the summary sheets. Categorization ofthe extracted data was then made. The strategy to analyze the case study evidencefollowed a theoretical proposition guiding case analysis (Yin, 2003). The theoreticalorientation was based on the generally used 3R principles Reduce, Reuse and


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Recycle of environmental abatement. Collected information is analyzed under these3R categories and is furthered identified as technical and manual.

Delineating measures into CSITo achieve generalization to some degree beyond the immediate situation, cross-casesyntheses were also performed for these studied hotels which represent three out offour certified ISO 14001 hotels in the city (Doyle, 2003; Noblit and Hare, 1998). Thesame environmental measures that were identified in these three cases were interpretedas common core (C) measures. Environmental measures that were ascertained in twocases were regarded as significant (S). Environmental measures that were found in onecase are termed individual (I) measures. Then the research further analyzed thesemeasures by delineating them into three types - manual basis (undertaken by operatingstaff), technical skills (undertaken by engineering employees), and higher investment.

Quantitative analysis

The other unit of analysis embedded in these cases involved the search for reportedenergy consumption data and energy-related variables to evaluate the overalleffectiveness of various categories of measures. To perform relevant analysis, thestudy collected two sorts of data inhouse activities and climatic parameters.Structured data collection sheets were designed and were distributed twice beforecertification and another after certification to owner, general managers or chiefengineers to collect relevant inhouse activities and physical information. For theclimatic data, the researcher purchased them from the local observatory. The collectedfigures were then input into four sorts of estimation techniques: energy consumptionper occupied room, gas usage per food cover, normalized performance indicator, andmultiple regression:

(1) Energy usage per occupied room. The first technique has been used by hoteloperators, since an occupied room has been recognized as a sound basis formanagerial analysis. The three studied hotels adopted this analytical approachin preparation of their environmental reports. However, past and recent studiesindicated that climatic variable is the dominant factor in affecting energyperformance in most situations, rather than the consumption activity roomoccupancy (Redlin and de Roos, 1980; Zmeureanu, 1994; Chan, 2005). Thus,there is a practical need to incorporate climate-related factor into any futureanalysis of hotel energy consumption. Nevertheless, the activity variable number of occupied room appears to be more suitable to explain waterconsumption as the correlation between water usage and climatic factor is notstrong, especially when the laundry function of the hotel is outsourced, the

number of occupied room would be a more suitable variable to explain waterconsumption.

(2) Gas usage per food cover. The selection of the second technique is due to the factthat gas was mainly used in the studied hotels Chinese kitchens and food coverwas commonly recognized as the key variable. This is suitable for a hotel whosegas is solely used for cooking. However, in many situations, gas would also beused for heating the hot water system or boiler. The hybrid use of gas willdistort the measurement of gas usage per food cover.

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(3) Normalized performance indicator (NPI). The third technique refers to theannual electricity consumption based on a hotels gross floor area. It hasprevailed in the building profession. A number of building energy specialistshas used it to analyze the electricity consumption in hotels (Chan and Lam,

2002). Yu and Chows study found that 28 per cent of surveyed commercialbuilding designers used this method either to estimate the size ofair-conditioning plant or to compare the result generated by simple energyestimation program (Yu and Chow, 2000). Thus, this method seems to be moresuitable for the stage of hotel design, not operations.

(4) Multiple regression. The forth technique is the application of the multipleregression in analyzing hotel energy saving that was raised in the 1980s.Probably due to the sophistication of this technique and the difficulties ofaccessing PCs at that time, the use of multiple regression in this aspect has notbeen frequent until recently. In the early 2000s, scholars in the hotel arenaadopted multiple regression technique to estimate energy and water

consumption of the hotel sector and individual hotels (Chan and Mak, 2004;Deng and Burnett, 2002a, b).

In this study, regression analysis was conducted to examine the relationship betweendependent variables - monthly consumption of four types of energy (i.e. electricity,diesel, gas, and water) and other independent variables including the number ofoccupied rooms, number of guests, average out-door temperature, number of coolingdegree days and food cover. The data for formulating the equations were derived fromthe 36-month data prior to certification. To calculate the number of the cooling degreedays, the study summed up the monthly difference between daily average airtemperature and the specified temperature of activating the cooling system. Stepwisemultiple regression was performed (Coakes and Steed, 2001; Hair et al., 2006). As the

resulting equations were based on data from the situations in pre-certification, thepredicted consumption could be regarded as the consumption that happened in thepre-certified conditions. The differences between predicted consumption and the actualusage after certification can thus be interpreted as the estimated savings generatedincluding the standard error.

Three cases backgroundHotel Nikko Hongkong (Nikko) is a member of Nikko Hotels International, withheadquarters in Tokyo, Japan. The hotel continues the tradition of Japanesehospitality, which is renowned throughout the world. Opened in April 1988, HotelNikko Hongkong is a five-star deluxe hotel in Hong Kong, with 462 rooms and seven

outlets. The hotel is also located at Tsim Sha Tsui East and next to the VictoriaHarbour in Hong Kong. Nikko is the leader of implementing EMS in the Hong Konghotel industry. In the early 1990s, the hotel started pushing for environmentalimprovements by implementing energy and water conservation practices. As soon asthe green practices on water and energy were on track, Nikko hotel started looking forways to minimize waste production (Hotel Nikko Hongkong, 1999a). Nikkos EMSbased on the ISO 14001 standard was eventually set up in April 1999 (Hotel NikkoHongkong, 1999b).


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Grand Stanford is a water front five-star hotel located in Tsimshatsui East. It has579 rooms and four food and beverage outlets. The hotel was managed by Holiday Innin the 1980s and by the owners management company in the 1990s. More recently,Intercontinental have taken over the management. In the mid 1990s, Grand Stanford

initiated the environmental program and obtained the certification of ISO 14001 in2000.

The Kowloon Shangri-la hotel is a five-star hotel built up in the 1980s located inTsimshatsui area commercial area and has about 700 rooms plus seven cateringoutlets. In September 1996, it started the process of developing an EMS and soonbecame the first hotel in Asia to obtain ISO 14001 certification. Its prompt developmentof EMS up to international standard is based on its existing best practice in eachdepartment. The EMS brings significant benefits reputation and competitive edge -to hotel and these benefits have always outweighed the cost (Tsai et al., 2003).

Analysis

A total of 113 measures were identified. Five groups were delineated from the dataincluding energy, water, air, paper and chemical. It was found that 55 measures hadbeen related to energy, chiefly electricity, reducing practices. The dominance ofelectricity cutting measures is mainly due to the fact that electricity consumptionoccupies about 70 per cent of total annual energy consumption in sub-tropical cityhotels (Deng and Burnett, 2000).

Electricity-saving measuresAs shown in Figure 1, 14 core electricity reduction practices, were adopted, by thesethree studied hotels. Contrary to many claims that environmental works entailed highinvestment, only four measures were identified as higher capital investment namely,solar control window film, sensors of air-conditioning system, key tag controlled

switches and energy-saving light bulbs. It is believed that the purchase of thesetechnologies may effectively reduce energy cost on one hand and improve environmenton the other. For instance, the key tag controlled switches and air-conditioning sensorscan activate and control lighting, air-conditioning and ventilation systems based onzone occupancy. Installation of both devices can achieve significant savings and canpay back their initial costs within three years (Carbon Trust, 2007). In this study, Nikkoestimated that the guestroom keycard system could save $0.3 per room per day (Centerfor Environmental Leadership in Business (CFELIB) and Tour Operations Initiative forSustainable Tourism Development (TOIFSTD), 2002). With an initial cost of $21 perswitch, the payback period was 70 days given that a third of guest did not turn off themaster electrical switch when leaving their room. For energy-saving light bulbs, it cangenerate less unwanted heat, resulting in 75 per cent less energy consumption (Carbon

Trust, 2007). The payback period is approximately one year (UK Department of theEnvironment, 1999). These modern energy-saving light bulbs have an attractiveappearance and good light output, and their lifespan are usually seven to eight timeslonger than standard light bulbs (Carbon Trust, 2007). For the solar-control windowfilm, it was observed that field research about the energy saving capability waslimited. On the other hand, the remaining nine measures were less expensive and easyto be undertaken by operating staff in the studied hotels. For the significant reductionpractices, there were 23 measures of which 16 measures were identified to have more

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Figure 1.Taxonomy of electricity

reduction practices


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technical requirement than the core practices and the manual practice was limited tothree (item no. 15-17). Each studied hotel had also unique energy reduction practice.Grand Stanford operated the boiler when percentage load was over 30 per cent. TheShangri-la closed guest floor during low occupancy and installed an auto-stop function

for lift when lift was not in use. Apart from these measures, there were a number ofpractices, which were identified during the early part of the research but unconfirmedduring the latter part. This phenomenon was probably ascribed to some interviewersleaving the company or some change in their positions to other section. This makes thestudy difficult to contact them to verify the practices.

Table II shows the assessment methods pertaining to the three types of energyconsumption before and after certification originated from respective hotels. Theaveraging based on per occupied room, multiple regression and normalizedperformance indicator (NPI) are the methods generally adopted by hotelpractitioners, scholars and building professionals, respectively.

Assessing electricity consumptionAs displayed in Table II, the average usage of electricity based on per occupied roomwas on the increase instead of declining after the adoption of the identified measures.This was mainly due to the use of the lower explanatory power variable occupiedroom. In the two investigating periods, the occupancy of these three studied hotels hadabout 10 per cent spread in average. The lower occupancy in the post certificationperiod thus pushed up the electricity usage per occupied room. On the other hand,multiple regression results with average R2 over 0.9 shows positive electricity savingranging from 314,252kWh to 2,405,635kWh in average per year for Nikko andShangri-la. For the Grand Stanford, the reverse trend of electricity savings was due tothe replacement of fuel oil fired boiler by electric heat pumps, which consumed asubstantial amount of electricity in post certification period. This change in the type of

energy used directly affected the predictability of the regression equation, which wasbuilt on the data using diesel oil-fired boiler (i.e. a situation without electric heat pump).The third method, NPI, appears to be relatively suitable for these three cases andshows a moderate reduction (5-25kWh in average) of electricity usage on per squaremeter basis.

Measures with dual purposesIt was also observed that there were 13 measures possessing dual purpose eitherenergy or water reduction or energy and indoor air pollutant reduction as shown inFigure 2. The former includes adjustment of water flow rate and water temperature fordifferent kitchens and various washing machines as well as installation of temperaturesensor and control valve for dry cleaning machine. The later encompasses kitchen

doors adjacent to dinning areas being kept closed, checking any leakage of refrigerant,adjusting air to fuel ratio, checking primary air unit (PAU) and fresh air dampers rightamount of air supply, calibrating stream meters, using outdoor low temperatureoutdoor air for cooling and analyzing combustion efficiency.

Measures for gas and fuel oil reductionIn the area of gas and diesel oil reduction, the core practices (item no. 59, 60) were toclean the kitchen equipment and to adjust the air to fuel ratio to optimize the diesel

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Electricity

Regression(kWh)

Peroccupiedroombasis(kWh)

Normalizedperformance

indicator(kW

hperm

2)

Before

certification

Post-

certification

Variance

(kWh)

Before

certification

Post-

certification

Before

certification

Post-

certification

Nikko

19,245,482.00

18,931,230.00

314,252.00

63

.60

69.76

290.91

281.43

Shangri-la

43,923,095.00

41,517,460.00

2,405,635.00

107

.19

129.18

390.43

364.19

GStanford

21,524,408.10

22,931,330.00

2

1,406,921.90

64

.06

70.54

254.19

248.55

Equation

Monthlyelectricity

consumption

278,26819,003AVTemp

4.6Guest

whereR2

0:923

(Nikko)

Monthlyelectricity

consumption

1,304,1711

,609CDD

19.6OCC

whereR2

0:915

(Shangri-la)

Monthlyelectricity

consumption

463,008781CDD

6Cover

whereR2

0:948

(GrandStanford)

Gas

Regression

Per

occupiedroombasis

Gasusageperfoodcoverbasis

(MJ)

(MJ)

(MJpercover)

(MJpercover)

Before

certification

Post-

certification

Variance

Before

certification

Post-

certification

Before

certification

Post-

certification

Nikko

12,836,305.00

12,639,264.00

197,041.32

44

.62

46.54

7.86

9.37

Shangri-la

20,730,816.00

24,132,096.00

2

3,401,280.00

54

.21

75.11

15.19

18.76

GStanford

194,995.14

248,921.00

2

53,925.86

0

.80

0.77

0.26c

0.31

Equation

Monthlygas

consumption

489,401.42

,345.7AVTemp

1.8Cover

whereR2

0:384

(Nikko)

Monthlygas

consumption

665,581.529

,252AVTemp

7.8Cover

whereR2

0:596

(Shangri-la)

Monthlygasconsumption

1,625.7

0.24Cover

whereR2

0:748

(GrandStanford)

Dieseloil

Regression

(litres)

Peroccupiedroombasis(litres)

Normalizedperformance

indicator(litr

esperm

2)

Before

certification

Post-

certification

Variance

Before

certification

Post-

certification

Before

certification

Post-

certification

Nikko

2,054,142.00

944,200.00

1,109,942.00

4

.33

3.53

19.79

14.04

Shangri-la

2,138,831.00

2,011,500.00

127,331.50

5

.64

6.26

20.55

17.64

GStanford

766,961.11

1,316,492.00

2

549,530.89

5

.37

4.05

21.3

14.27

Equation

Monthlydieseloil

consumption

92,203.121,413.7AVTemp

0.48Cover

whereR2

0:608

(Nikko)

Monthlydieseloil

consumption

127,217.422

,617.3AVTemp

1.8OCC

whereR2

0:779

(Shangri-la)

Monthlydieseloil

consumption

43,313.121,184.3AVTemp

0.5Cover

whereR2

0:742

(GrandStanford)

Table II.Assessment of

performance ofenergy-saving measures


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Figure 2.Taxonomy of reductionpractices for dualpurposes

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boiler performance. Other significant reduction practices (item no. 61-63) for the boilerinclude the routine checking, applying chemical treatment of feed water and installingeconomizer to recover water heat. All these measures required some technicalknowledge. Again, these measures are also seldom available in many manual

checklists.

Assessing gas usageFor the gas consumption shown in Table II, the explanatory power of the equationswas also weak ranging from 0.38 to 0.74. This phenomenon is most probably due to thevarious ways of Chinese cooking methods, which may entail quite a different durationof stewing and steaming for menu items in the Chinese restaurants. On the other hand,the ratio of gas consumption to food cover indicates an increasing trend of gas usageratio by 19-24 per cent in the two study periods. Such a rise in the value of gas usageratio perhaps attributable to the change in menu item, chef cooking practice, theobsolete of cooking equipment and even change in gas pressure or calorific value.Thus, it is suggested to carry out a mechanical check into cooking equipment. Also toremedy the monitoring mechanism in this aspect, sub-metering for gas usage andrecording the number of food cover in various sections of Chinese kitchen can also beconsidered. If resources available, it is worthy to measure and calculate the gasconsumption of individual dish for reference. Since this investigation involves onlythree cases, it is necessary to enlarge the number of investigating hotels before wecome to the conclusion about the increasing trend.

Assessing fuel oil usageFor the diesel oil consumption revealed in Table II, the explanatory power of threehotels regression equations was moderately acceptable ranging from 0.61 to 0.78.Almost all three indicators show the reduction of diesel oil consumption in post

certification period when compared with pre certification period. The only exceptionwas found in the per occupied room method for Shangri-la.

Measures dealing with air pollutantsIn terms of reducing the amount of air pollutants, three studied hotels have establishednon-smoking guest floor, phased out unhealthy air pollutants R-23 and usedenvironmental friendly fire extinguisher as core measures as revealed in Figure 3.Other significant practices include replacement of existing drying equipment with anapproved model, the set up of non-smoking section of staff cafeteria and theimprovement of buildings internal air balance.

Water-saving measures and consumption assessment

For water savings as displayed in Table III, the core practices comprised installingflow regulator, keeping kitchen always clean and turning on water taps when needed.Additional measures undertaken by Shangri-la and Grand Stanford were theinstallation of calibrate-able water control system and flow meters. After certification,water consumed per occupied room in Nikko was the lowest among the three localhotels. It recorded a consumption rate of 0.94m3 per occupied room, whichapproximated the industry average of 0.95m3 in the US according to a surveyconducted by the American Hotel and Lodging Association (Brodsky, 2005).


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Shangri-La and Grand Stanford recorded a consumption rate of 1.19m3 and 1.18m3

respectively. Both figures were higher than the US industry average. In terms of

effectiveness of these measures, the study found that the regression based evaluationmethod was not applicable as the resulting R-square of equation was very weakranging from 0.13 to 0.44. The low explanatory power of the regression equations isprobably due to the distortion of the historical data pattern as a result of theinstallation of many water saving devices during the eve of certification. However, itcan be seen from Table III that all hotels water consumption experienced remarkabledrop under the remaining two evaluation method NPI and per occupied room. Themagnitude of decrease in water consumption ranged from 18 to 43 per cent. In

Figure 3.Taxonomy of air pollutantreduction practices

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Waterconsumption

Waterconsumptiononper

occupiedroombasis

Waterconsumption

onperNPI

basis

Waterconsumption

Before

certification

(m3)

After

certification

(m3)

Before

certification

(m3)

After

certification

(m3)

Before

certification

(m3

perm

2)

After

c

ertification

(m

3

perm

2)

Nikko

126,038

1.14

0.94

5.19

3.75

Shangrila

35,676

190,337

1.58

1.19

5.57

3.3

GStanford

19,769

191,511

1.75

1.18

6.95

4.15

Equation

Monthlywater

consumption

7,293.9

0.034

Cover

0.27Linen

0.26Guest

where

R2

0:362

(Nikko)

Monthlywater

consumption

15,073

0.336Rm

Nite

0.293Cover

where

R2

0:155

(Shangri-la)

Monthlywaterconsumption

7,451

0.023Cover

0.016Linen

0.62GuestwhereR2

0:462(GrandStanford)

Table III.Assessment of

performance ofwater-saving measures


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accordance with NPI, Grand Stanford records the largest reduction in water, followedby Shangri-la and then by Nikko. The NPI method appears to be more suitable whenonly total water is available. By benchmarking comparison of the resultant water normon per occupied room, Nikko outperformed the other two. But the situation is reversed

when NPI is adopted. Owing to its definition, the per occupied room method isparticularly suitable to hotels that install sub-meter to record water consumptionmerely for room. To better understand the effectiveness of water saving in variousdepartments in future, it is suggested that hotel should not just install sub-meter invarious areas, but also calculate water consumption average based on respective waterconsumption and activities.

Measures for solid waste managementFor reducing the amount of paper, all three studied hotels used the paper of both sides,electronic mail and eliminate meal coupon. Other significant measures included thepurchase of biodegradable tissue paper and linen coaster. To reduce the chemicalusage, all three hotels purchased environmental-friendly cleaning chemicals, selectedsuitable detergent and placed towel reuse sign in guest room. Non-smoking guestfloors were established and more environmental-friendly extinguisher plus phasingout of R-11 refrigerant for chillers were adopted in all these studied hotels.

In the area related to reusing principle, there were 14 measures (item no. 79-81,92-100 and 109-110) as shown in Figure 4. The core practices were the donation of usedclothes, collection of outside publications for staff reading and encouragement ofsupplier to reuse containers. The other significant reuse practices were also popular inmany local hotels such as use of canvas bags for guest and staff laundry, reuse oftowel/bed linen and chemical containers plus donation of mattress, soap, equipment,leftover food and so on.

For the recycling principle, it was found that 13 measures have been adoptedincluding seven cores, three significant and three individual practices. The corerecycling practices (item no. 82-88) covered newspaper, envelop, cartridge, sticker,container and encouragement of supplier to use environmental friendly packaging.Other items for recycling by two hotels were tin can, toilet paper wrapping, woodenhanger, bottle, paper wrapped chopsticks and rinse water. It was also observed thatShangri-la has some additional recycling practice for stationery, menu and newspaperdistribution bag.

However, during the research process, it was discovered that the record on the reuseor recycle of solid waste was not well documented. This is probably due to either thetightening resources allocated to environmental monitoring or the lessoned attentionon reporting in these areas. This situation has a departure from chapter 30 of Agenda

21 adopted at the Rio Earth Summit; that chapter has further encouraged business andindustry to report annually on their environmental records as well as on their use ofenergy and natural resources. Pryce (2001) even held that environmental factors havebeen crystallized into the key performance areas identified by Agenda 21. The resultsin the key performance areas can then be benchmarked to previous periods or againstother hotels. Therefore, it is recommended that hotel operators should pay attention tothe evaluation mechanism and process so as to achieve a real monitoring function. Thesuggested audit tables for waste management, by international and professional body,

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Figure 4.Taxonomy of reuse and

recycle practices


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can be considered as a prototype for developing as monitoring tool (InternationalHotels Environmental Initiatives (IHEI), 1996).

Conclusions and implicationsThe study has unveiled many environmental measures being applied in deluxe hotelswith ISO14001 EMS certification. These identified measures provide hoteliers athorough picture and deeper understanding about the actual environmental worksinvolved in this internationally recognized EMS beyond generally perceiveddocumentary works of EMS. Hotel operators and owners can thus use thesemeasures as a reference to either apply EMS certification or developing their own EMS.Based on this published experience, they may have more accurate estimate of theresource and time required for the development of the EMS. Especially, the coremeasures can be treated as indispensable parts in hotels environmental managementsystems ISO14001. As a result, any hotel that plans to start setting up EMS ISO14001must concentrate on these core measures. Also in contrast to most other technical

standards developed over the years by ISO, the current ISO14001 is interpreted as aprocess standard since it specifies the characteristics of the components of amanagement system rather than particular measure/product specifications orperformance requirements (Fryxell and Szeto, 2002). Nevertheless, this studysynthesizes and differentiates 113 measures in these three hotels and establishes areference database for converting the current process standard to some specifiedstandards or measures essential in the hotel ISO 14001 EMS.

On the other hand, while monitoring is considered as an important part in the EMS14001, the study found that there was still a deficiency that is the inappropriate useof energy consumption on per occupied room basis to assess energy consumption inthe monitoring part. In light of this situation, the study recommends and demonstratesthe use of regression analysis to evaluate the effectiveness of energy saving measures,

particularly electricity. To make the assessment by regression analysis moreeasy-to-use in the hotel sector, the study suggests that trade association should loadand update a cooling degree day database online so that member hotel may retrievethis relevant parameter to predict the energy saving potential. The trade associationmay even collaborate with hotel school to construct and maintain this web. On theother hand, hotelier may also partner with hotel schools to predict the energy savingsattributable to these measures by using their statistical software of multipleregressions. This computer based statistical technique is very sophisticated in itsearlier versions in two decades ago whereas the technique is becoming more and moreuser-friendly and easy-to-use in its present version. However, it should be noted therewere still some difficulties in tracing the reduction of energy usage that can be

attributed to ISO14001 as many hotels could implement energy saving measures beforethey plan to achieve this certification.

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Santamouris, C.A., Balaras Dascalaki, E., Argiriou, A. and Gaglia, A. (1996), Energyconservation and retrofitting potential in Hellenic hotels, Energy and Buildings, Vol. 24No. 1, pp. 65-75.

About the authorWilco Chan is an assistant professor of the School of Hotel and Tourism Management in theHong Kong Polytechnic University. He has been actively involved in promoting environmentalprotection and has published a number of articles related to green hotels. Currently, he is leadingseveral teams to conduct funded research about environmental quality index, energy-savingfacilities, indoor air quality and air-conditioning systems in the tourism sector in China and HongKong. Wilco Chan can be contacted at: [email protected]

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