Sustainable buildings
Introduction
Whitbread has an estate of circa 1,800 properties, the majority of which are freehold. The buildings throughout the estate vary considerably in age, design and construction. Most are relatively modern, however there are a small number of listed buildings within the estate.
We believe in maintaining our buildings to a high standard, ensuring that they are not only fit for purpose, but also a pleasant environment for our customers and team members. This means that they need to be refreshed and refurbished from time to time, which presents an opportunity to introduce environmental initiatives in order to make the buildings more sustainable.
When we grow our estate, we can acquire and convert existing buildings, otherwise we acquire land that is suitable for constructing new property. With new buildings it is possible to have a greater influence over the design, using more sustainable construction materials and methods and incorporating the latest environmental technologies.
Our approach
Whitbread's approach to sustainable buildings incorporates two key strands:
- New build initiatives
including trialling new construction methods, materials and technologies. - Building refurbishment
initiatives
the introduction of environmental initiatives during building refurbishments.
New-build initiatives
To follow are some initiatives employed in our new buildings:
Improving building design
Whitbread aims to consistently improve upon the environmental and energy performance of its new developments, by:
- Looking at the design of the building and whether improvements can be made, for example, improving insulation of the fabric of the building;
- Incorporating renewable technologies such as Combined Heat and Power, Biomass, Photovoltaic or Solar Panels;
- Integrating low energy fixtures and fittings, such as boilers, fans, pumps and kitchen appliances; and
- Working closely with local planning authorities to ensure that new developments complement local strategies and planning requirements.
Greywater recycling
Premier Inn first installed a greywater recycling system at a hotel in Doncaster in 2007. This technology recycles the 'grey' water from baths and showers and uses it to flush the hotel toilets, saving circa 27% of the hotel's total water consumption.
The 'grey' wastewater is collected in an aerobic treatment tank, before being pumped into a filtration tank. Here, solid waste, biomass and bacteria are separated using an ultra filter membrane. Once the water is clean, it can be used to flush the bedroom toilets.
Since the successful pilot in 2007, greywater technology has been installed at one further hotel and is now considered with all new build hotels. It does not appear to be cost effective to retrofit this technology into existing hotels.
Water saving bathrooms
In our new hotels, we install aerated showerheads, low flow taps and dual flush low water toilets as standard practice.
Aerated showerheads reduce the volume of water passing through them by circa 20%, whilst still providing a powerful shower experience, by adding air to the flow of water.
The toilets are dual flush and will dispense a maximum of six litres with each flush.
Waste management plans
Whitbread uses the Building Research Establishment's (BRE) 'SMARTWaste Plan', a web-based tool to write and implement site waste management plans (SWMPs).
Companies add details of their construction projects and follow a series of steps to generate a SWMP.
The tool has an integrated waste measurement function, allowing Whitbread to monitor the volume of waste produced on its construction projects and how it is disposed. This will allow Whitbread to proactively reduce the volume of construction waste sent to landfill for all new build projects.
Green travel plans
It is now commonplace for us to produce a green travel plan for new hotel and restaurant developments. This takes place at the planning stages of the development and outlines our proposal to encourage both team members and guests to travel in a sustainable manner, for example using public transport, walking and cycling. A travel plan co-ordinator is appointed onsite to ensure implementation of the plan, monitor progress towards achieving targets and to action any necessary amendments.
It is also possible to mitigate the loss of bird habitats by including the use of 'bird bricks' instead of conventional bird boxes, which form a permanent part of the building structure. These have already been installed at one Premier Inn hotel and are due to be included at another hotel later in the year.
Biodiversity
When development occurs, it results in the loss of greenfield sites i.e. those not previously developed or brownfield sites i.e. those previously developed. Even on brownfield sites, which are sometimes thought of as less ecologically rich, it is possible for bird and insect species to be negatively affected by development.
It is possible to mitigate the loss of greenfield and brownfield habitat by creating alternative habitats for plants, insects and birds on the roof space of buildings, otherwise known as a green roof or brown roof. The only difference between these is that green roofs are planted, usually with sedum, whereas brown roofs have a substrate material laid down on the roof and are then left to colonise naturally. Green and brown roofs have been created at two new-build Premier Inn hotels.
BREEAM
Whitbread is keen to understand and measure the environmental impacts of its new developments.
The Building Research Establishment (BRE) has developed the leading and most widely used tool to do this - BREEAM (Building Research Establishment's Environmental Assessment Method).
BREEAM sets the standard for best practice in sustainable design and has become the de facto measure used to describe a building's environmental performance.
Unfortunately, there is no standard BREEAM tool in existence for the hotel and restaurant sector. Until recently, this meant that a bespoke assessment had to be undertaken whenever Whitbread had a new hotel or restaurant development.
However, in 2006 Whitbread took the initiative to develop in conjunction with the BRE a BREEAM assessment tool that we could apply to all of our new hotel and restaurant developments.
This new tool allows the BREEAM assessors to make consistent assessments of our developments, quickly and accurately.
Flagship green hotel
Premier Inn's flagship purpose-built green hotel opened in Tamworth in December 2008. Specialist environmental design consultants, the Malthouse Consultancy were employed to ensure that the end result was a high performance, low carbon hotel.
The hotel was used as a test-bed to trial the best green technologies currently available, to see which are viable for future use within the estate.
The combination of building materials and low carbon technologies being used at Tamworth is not matched anywhere else in Britain. It includes:
- Clever lighting - very low energy LED lighting with motion sensors ensure they are only on when needed
- Building that breathes - fresh air is delivered to each room, capturing the energy from the air it replaces
- Natural insulation - sustainable British sheep's wool used in the walls to create exceptionally efficient thermal and acoustic insulation
- Timber flooring - sustainably-sourced certified timber used as a replacement for concrete ground floors
- Solar power - solar panels to heat enough water for 1,000 baths a year
- Earth's natural energy - ground source heat pumps use the earth's natural energy to cool and heat rooms and provide hot water throughout the hotel
- Locally-sourced - clay roof tiles and low-carbon cement sourced locally
- Concrete cuts - 100 tonnes less concrete used than a building of this size built to current industry standards
- Sustainable materials - including recycled plasterboard used for the internal walls
- Toilets flushed - with recycled water from showers and baths will save 20% of the hotel's entire water usage.
Team members have been trained to understand the technologies behind the design and to help with minimising everyday energy and water consumption, such as in washing, water usage, excessive heating or cooling.
Receptionists have the ability to control electricity use in the rooms and corridors. By allocating rooms in zones, they can isolate rooms that are not in use, in order to conserve energy.
Guests will be able to see the energy saved as part of a visual display in the hotel lobby, as well as learn about the technology used whilst building.
Performance
The performance of the green hotel was assessed by comparing its water footprint and carbon footprint to a Premier Inn hotel of the same size. In the first six months since opening, the green hotel has demonstrated significant carbon and water savings, with the water footprint of the green hotel circa 49% smaller and the carbon footprint circa 81% smaller than the standard build hotel. These savings have been achieved through a combination of water and energy saving initiatives, including greywater, aerated shower heads, low flow taps, low flush toilets, low energy lighting, solar power and a ground source heat pump.
Thermal imaging of the hotel shows that the building is very efficient at retaining heat. Whiteness would indicate areas where the building heat is escaping.
The building has an energy performance certificate, with an 'A rating. Premier Inn has also applied for a BREEAM (Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method) rating, to grade the environmental performance of the building in terms of its design, construction and operation. Further details will be made available as soon as the rating is confirmed by the BRE (Building Research Establishment).
Customer feedback has been extremely positive, with 43% of customers rating the hotel's corporate responsibility performance as 5 or 'Very Good', the highest possible rating (on a scale of 1 to 5). For the rest of Premier Inn, 20% of guests rated the hotel's corporate responsibility performance as 5 or 'Very Good' (on a scale of 1 to 5).
Going forward
From the range of technologies implemented at the Tamworth hotel, those that were most successful in terms of environmental and financial benefit are:
- Heat recovery from bathrooms;
- Rainwater/greywater recycling;
- Super insulated building;
- LED lighting;
- Sustainable timber;
- Reduced cement/concrete; and
- Triple glazed windows.
The Company is currently reviewing how these initiatives could be implemented in the estate.
Alternative initiatives to those implemented at the 'green hotel' are also under consideration. For example, the use of solar film as a more cost effective alternative to solar shading.
The use of solar panels to produce hot water has not proved to be very successful due to the fact that they generate most hot water between 11am to 3pm, but the peak demands of the hotel are 6am to 9am and 5pm to 8pm.
Whilst the ground source heat pump was expensive to install, it is believed that it would achieve a much earlier payback on larger hotels, with 100+ bedrooms.
Building refurbishment initiatives
Our buildings are typically refurbished on a cyclical basis, approximately every 6 years.
In 2007, the Company implemented the Carbon Trust's Low-Carbon Building Accelerator (LCBA) programme. The LCBA programme brought a new approach to the refurbishment of commercial buildings, encouraging owners and developers to seize the opportunity of a major refurbishment to install cost-effective, energy-efficient measures in the building's fabric and services.
A number of energy-saving measures were trialled at a Beefeater restaurant, including:
- Upgrading the insulation of the roof and cavity walls;
- Draught proofing windows and doors;
- Sealing off the unused chimney;
- Using auto-closing louvers on extract fans;
- Installing thermostatic valves on all radiators; and
- Fitting low-energy bulbs in all light fixtures.
These energy initiatives proved to be inexpensive and simple to adopt and it was estimated that they would pay for themselves in three years or less.
Following this successful trial, we developed a list of low-cost, energy-efficient improvement works to be included in our restaurant refurbishments.
In the first year, more than 100 restaurants were refurbished and all had energy efficiency improvement works carried out at the same time.
