Click to play videoNew Delhi: It's boom-time for the hospitality industry, but with their massive resource consumption and waste generation, big hotels quite literally function and pollute like a mini city!
But how many travelers really think about the planet and not just their purse strings when they check in?
Guests don't seem to care, so is environment consciousness really important for the hospitality industry?
For most big hotels today, it's more a matter of policy compliance, but amid all this, a small handful are actually working to help the planet breathe easy.
Says Vice-President ITC Hotels, Dipak Haksar, "For sustainable development one needs to really look beyond the market."
The lobby at Uppal's Orchid hotel in Delhi is fitted with large triple glazed windows to cut the need of lighting during day, while still keeping the area cool.
All organic matter here is dumped into vermicomposting pits to be re-used as soil manure.
But at the ITC Maurya, people have found another way to stave of air conditioner and steam consumption.
Says Chief Engineer, ITC Hotel, The Maurya, Prakash Kumar, "We have shifted from inefficient plants and machinery and have saved about Rs 50 lakh of energy."
ITC has also been trying to cut down on its toxic waste generation by using chemical free detergents, and replacing plastic organic materials. But what about the tons of plastic its supply chain already generates?
Maurya has actually given space in its basement to an NGO which converts all the plastic generated by the hotel into poly-loom and convert them into bags which are sold in the market by the NGO.
The few hotels going green say its money well spent.
Says Vice-President, Uppal's Orchid, Pushpinder Kumar, "An additional cost of 25 per cent is invested when the hotel is started but within one-and-a-half years, we recover that whole 25 per cent because of the cost saving that we actually do. It could be anything -- energy costs or water saving."
Now, it is up to the rest of this booming industry to take a cue from these hotels and join the green movement to save the Earth.
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