Hotels: Remaining competitive through integrated operation and energy management
ESG has for some time now been the buzzword of the corporate world. The pressure is on to approach its goals (environmental, social, and governance) as concerted efforts, and to do so with calculable, evident results. Hospitality is inherently concerned with these matters, being an industry that must cater to the ultimate wellbeing of its clients with environmentally friendly methods.
Net-zero emissions are of particular importance to this industry. The Sustainable Hospitality Alliance reports that:
The hotel industry needs to reduce its carbon emissions by 66 per cent per room by 2030, and by 90 per cent per room by 2050 to ensure that the growth forecast for the industry does not lead to a corresponding increase in carbon emissions. The industry will need to go even further to help limit warming to 1.5C and avoid the very worst impacts of climate change.
Industry giants like Hilton, Accor and IHG having already pledged to at least halve their carbon footprint over the next decade. What are the common strategies of these names towards confidently pursuing such goals, and the new lens through which sustainability ought to be viewed for resolving complex and intersecting environmental challenges?
Starting off with the right resources is undoubtedly important. Passive design buildings, sustainable construction, renewable energy, replacing old systems and devices with energy efficient ones; these are surely advantages. Sustainability, however, is not a static concept, but rather one that should apply to the entire lifecycle of an organization’s assets. It is therefore primarily a matter of adaptability, i.e how readily the building can shift to meet its occupants social and environmental needs. This kind of adaptability is by itself a KPI that leading business are already tracking.
To this end, big data and automation must be effectively used. Leading hotels have achieved that through integration with all-in-one tools that are able to not only handle and manage significant amounts of data, but most importantly, use the information that buildings themselves ‘produce’ to make their facilities smarter.
A number of complex questions that should concern hotels:
Holistic management of energy consumption, CO2 emissions, environmental conditions and the patterns they produce from energy usage to customer wellbeing and satisfaction, needs the help of sophisticated tools that can present all this data in an intersecting and actionable manner. Collecting data 24/7 to immediately pick up on changing conditions, modern technology can help organizations achieve continual improvement of their ESG strategies.
This is crucial for achieving the adaptability required to keep business value up throughout the whole asset lifecycle of a hotel. Modern technology helps break down ESG into clear-cut goals and certifiable practices, supporting different energy and environmental management systems (e.g ISO 5001, LEED, ISO 14001 etc.) and focusing on:
1. All-in-one Energy Management
Intelligent Energy Management Systems go beyond simply monitoring energy consumption, showing precisely how the latter occurs through energy disaggregation, pattern recognition, and dynamic setting optimization. Users are then notified about abnormal consumption patterns, and Machine Learning helps predict energy needs, helping energy managers set increasingly advanced goals.
Towards getting ISO 50001 certified, Hilton adopted a bespoke energy management platform, seeking consistent approaches with long term results for their energy and budget optimization. Moreover, the ability of cutting-edge tools to integrate with any existing building software, HVAC systems, while gathering and correlating data from any type of sensor or meter, skyrockets the benefits of digitized energy management.
Through such solutions, hotels have reported more than 25% of energy reduction, 20% cost reduction, combined with predictive maintenance, and prompt anomaly detection in underperforming HVAC which produce tons of CO2 annually.
2 . Environmental Accountability and Social Responsibility
Hotels should be able to clearly report on their ethical practices and demonstrate them to the wider public. Changing industry landscape always comes with changing customer base. Today’s customers are concerned with business transparency more than ever before. Building lasting client relations therefore requires the ability to respond to the concerns of ethical consumerism.
All-in-one facility management platforms offer the ability to digitally track all operations and view any KPI from a single pane of glass. This presents the opportunity for custom dashboards where each user can view whatever is of interest to them; something to be used for involving both your staff and your clients in your energy optimization process, helping create a bottom-up culture of sustainability within organizations and publicly showcase their efforts.
Such dashboards are also extremely beneficial for when Smart Environmental Monitoring Systems are in place, methodically collecting data such as temperature, humidity, CO2 and VOCs, and performing correlation analysis towards ensuring maximum comfort and safety for clients and staff. This is key in pursuing ISO 9001 certification, requiring monitoring, measurement and data analysis of the results of every process with the goal to satisfy customers and continuously improve the process.
Broadcasting all this information on screens in public hotel areas enhances transparency and visibility of the organization’s commitment to providing high standards of hospitality and optimized working conditions.
Our solution
YodiFEM helps organizations streamline their ESG tactics and achieve complex sustainability KPI’s through a scalable multi-tenant digital environment offering end-to-end visibility across facilities. Our systems are perfectly adjusted to your roadmap, offering tailored solutions to the needs of large facilities in cooperation with the most experienced energy auditors on the Greek market!
Book a 30-minute free consultation call with us today!