QHotels has been awarded 7 Gold and 15 Silver awards by Green Tourism Business Scheme (GTBS), the UK sustainable tourism certification programme.
The hotels, which were first audited by GTBS in 2009 have shown a significant improvement, by up to 25% in some hotels, raising the green standards across all 21 hotels and the QHotels corporate head office.
QHotels' Managing Director and chair of its CSR steering group, Michael Purtill said: “We are very proud of this achievement. We had a target to achieve at least one Gold award and to see an improvement in all hotel scores, so to be awarded with seven Gold accreditations and to witness the huge improvements at most hotels is an amazing achievement."
"Across all areas of our business, our green champions have worked tirelessly to achieve our CSR objectives, which include reducing our energy consumption this year by 15% on 2008."
“Despite the current economic climate we continue to invest in our hotels and our people to ensure we provide an eco-friendly environment for all of our guests."
"Our conference carbon offsetting package, launched a few months ago gives delegates the chance to offset the carbon they use at our hotels to benefit third world carbon reduction projects, and to date we have received more than £126,000 worth of conference business, which offset the carbon they used, thus supporting a run-of-the-river hydropower project in Brazil.”
Jon Proctor, technical director of the GTBS, said: “Having chaired the committee which approved the Gold awards, I have been most impressed in the way that QHotels has raised standards across their hotels and considered local factors when establishing best practices.
“QHotels have embraced quality and sustainability as a core brand identity and we look forward to them gaining increased recognition by their clients and the industry as a whole. They can up be upheld as a great example to the industry.
“We were particularly impressed by The Midland hotel in Manchester city centre who achieved a Gold award and have tackled their food waste by installing a kitchen-based food digester along with a roof-top herb garden.
“The Nottingham Belfry in Nottingham and Ashford International Hotel in Kent, also both Gold award winners, have become two of the first hotels in the UK to provide an electric car charging station to enable owners of Tesla electric cars to charge their eco-friendly vehicles.”
The Green Tourism Business Scheme is the only national sustainable tourism certification program in the UK endorsed by VisitEngland, VisitScotland and VisitWales and has been validated by the International Centre for Responsible Tourism since 2008.
Operated by a not-for-profit organisation, Green Business, there are over 2,400 GTBS members throughout the UK and Ireland. Businesses are graded by qualified environmental assessors and can benefit from significant marketing advantage and reduced running costs of up to 20%.
