Although it's already an industry leader in sustainability — having had an environmental program at its properties for more than 20 years — Fairmont Hotels & Resorts has introduced a new "Sustainable Design Policy" establishing a formal, worldwide policy embracing green building standards for each of its new development projects and renovation programs, it announced last month.
"When it comes to greening the hotel industry, we've never been a brand that has rested on our laurels," said Fairmont Hotels & Resorts President Chris Cahill. "And while we literally wrote the book on hotel sustainability and have been focused on making our collection of heritage and world-class properties as environmentally sound as possible, we continue to look for new ways to expand our ecological scope. Instituting formalized design and construction guidelines for our robust pipeline of new hotel projects and ongoing capital agenda adds a new dimension to our pioneering environmental mandate. Environmental stewardship is part of Fairmont's DNA and we want to ensure it's evident in all phases of our business."
Fairmont's new Sustainable Design Policy recognizes LEED standards and also supports the brand's larger pledge to reduce operational CO2 emissions as a member of the World Wildlife Fund's Climate Savers program. Among other things, it includes new environmental criteria and checklists for renovation projects and property retrofits, environmental consultation during the design and construction process, and the creation of a green build best practices repository for use by its hotels, engineers, developers, project leads and architects.
The first hotels completed under Fairmont's Sustainable Design Policy were the Fairmont Pittsburgh, which opened last year in downtown Pittsburgh and was the company's first LEED-certified hotel, and The Savoy in London, which unveiled a multi-year restoration program in October that included the addition of several new environmental technologies, such as a waste management system that recycles up to 90 percent of waste from the hotel and a heat and power (CHP) plant that reduces the hotel's reliance on the national grid by approximately 50 percent.
Fairmont's portfolio currently includes 56 one-of-a-kind hotels around the world, with plans to develop more than 20 new properties in the coming years in destinations as diverse as Shanghai, Abu Dhabi and Anguilla. For more information about the company's new Sustainable Design Policy, as well as its other green programs, visit www.fairmont.com.