How Green hotels can win gold at the London Olympics, save money, reduce energy and water waste without having to restrict guest use

The London Olympics is being billed as the first sustainable Games, setting a precedent for all future events.

The Games will open in July next year, time enough for hotel owners in the capital to make a huge contribution by becoming green hotels.

According to London’s 2012 Olympic bid, there are more than 70,000 three to five-star hotel rooms within 10 kilometres of Central London, so if each one replaced its legacy shower heads with proven models that reduce water consumption, without affecting guest satisfaction, the savings in both money and carbon footprint would be astonishing.

For example, let’s assume that each of these rooms consumes 10 minutes of shower time at an existing typical rate of 14 litres per minute.  That means a total of 9.8 million litres of water used per day.

If we installed our fully tested Jetstorm shower head, which uses 7 litres per minute, then the saving per day would be 4.9 million litres of water. Across the 17 days of the Games, this would be 83.3 million litres of water.

That’s enough to fill more than 33 Olympic-standard swimming pools.

In addition, these green hotels would collectively save around £315,000 over the 17 days through reduction in water and energy bills, as well as reducing the carbon footprint by 770 tonnes.

With these kind of savings, the cost of each installation would be repaid very quickly and we also have the potential to partner with green hotels on a CapEx-free partner solution.

But that’s only the start. The Olympic green hotel legacy means that the solutions could pay for themselves over the duration of the games and then continue to deliver savings, reduce exposure to any carbon tax and protect the environment.

I think that London’s high-star hotels would win gold in three ways:

1. They would become green hotels, which would add to their reputation and attract green-savvy guests.
2. They would implement a green solution that makes sound business sense – it effectively pays for itself.
3. They would reduce their carbon footprint with a simple green business solution.

It seems so simple, with such impressive savings, that there must be a catch, surely – a green hotel with no cost drain? You might think that but we can guarantee that our solutions have been fully tested and trialled in real-world London hotels. We make no unsubstantiated claims about our solutions so if you would like to talk to us about how to be a green hotel, with a sound business case, then please do call us or email.