IMC helps UK hotel meet carbon neutral goal

Background

Building an “eco hotel” has been a real challenge for Ludo Marcelo, owner of Great Hallingbury Manor Hotel located somewhat ironically in the flight path of Stanstead Airport on the Hertfordshire Essex border,yet extremely rewarding. The transformation of what was formerly a tired yet charming bed and breakfast with just 14 rooms in to a 48 bed luxury hotel and restaurant with all modern conveniences has been both dramatic and lengthy, not least as a result of the owner’s unwavering commitment to embrace green practices and aspiration for his hotel to be carbon neutral.

The conversion, rebuild and extension of the hotel has taken 3 years, considerably longer than Ludo had first anticipated, not least because, in many areas, he has been a trailblazer, pioneering the introduction of environmentally friendly systems never before used in the UK hotel industry. Ludo’s commitment to green solutions has also had a significant impact on his budget. Despite many years’ owning and running high quality hotels, notably in the Caribbean where he has continued to push the boundaries by recently launching a new concept in all inclusive luxury hotel accommodation, his experience still left him unprepared for the lack of practical advice and financial support he anticipated would be available to organisations wishing to adopt a green strategy.

Nevertheless, Great Hallingbury Manor is unique in the UK by incorporating a wide range of ecofriendly initiatives that Ludo has trawled the world in search for. In his, very experienced, opinion they represent the best of their type and, in some instances, have carried a price tag to match.

The hotel’s demand on precious resources such as power and water have been restricted to an absolute minimum, whilst a number of energy conservation initiatives, such as extra insulation and specially designed double glazing, have been employed in its construction and refurbishment. Both the restaurant and hotel, along with the water in the bathrooms, are heated using an ingenious and highly energy efficient ground source heat pump system that includes 7 miles of looped underground and underwater pipes to harness the earth’s natural constant warmth. This air-source heating can deliver up to three times more energy than it consumes. The air conditioning and heating of the offices and conference room are supplied by Nordic converters that use the surrounding air temperature to heat and cool. A bio-diesel powered generator, which uses recycled cooking oil, supplies electricity, whilst a dual plumbing system enables the toilets to be flushed using harvested rain water. Combined with low consumption showers, in place of baths, the hotel is able to save around 250 litres of water per day for each occupied room. The hotel’s van and bus are soon to be changed for electric vehicles and Ludo plans to invest in a photovoltaic plant with which to generate supplementary energy.

As a general guideline, Ludo estimates that, by “going green,” his costs, which he expects to exceed over £0.5 million, have been roughly 3 times the level they would have been had he followed a more traditional route.

Although a return on investment was ultimately important to Ludo, he does not expect his green systems to have paid for themselves for another 10 to 15 years.

The Challenge

Like virtually every other hotel worldwide, the primary source of waste, and one of the most difficult and expensive to deal with and dispose of, is food. Indeed, research conducted by Oxford Brookes University into the hospitality sector established that over 40% of a hotel’s waste is food.

Recently introduced legislation that prohibits the disposal to landfill of any raw meat and fish provides further motivation to avoid the “bag and bin” philosophy of using the solid waste stream with which to dispose of food waste.

In the case of Great Hallingbury Manor, the problem was no different except that not only did Ludo have to be convinced of any solution’s pedigree and efficiency but also the Executive Chef of the hotel’s self-contained gourmet restaurant, non other than Anton Edelmann, the former Maitre Chef du Cuisine at London’s prestigious Savoy Hotel for 21 years. Having called in IMC to advise on the hotel’s requirement for a new bar, Anton and Ludo became aware of IMC’s award winning food waste recycling solution and were convinced that it met all their requirements.

A waste audit, which IMC recommended in order to establish the weight and volume of food waste that had to be disposed of, took Anton completely by surprise. Certain that around 100 grams ofwaste was being generated for each cover served, he was astounded to discover that it in fact averaged 560 grams per cover. Serving lunch and dinner 7 days a week to 60 covers produces around 470kg of food waste every week, and this is further increased by functions such as weddings that are normally held in a marquee in the hotel’s grounds. Whilst plate waste is virtually nonexistent, hardly surprising given the restaurant’s exemplary culinary credentials, the vast majority of waste is produced in the kitchen’s preparation area where only the highest quality portion of the original foodstuff is destined for the customer’s table. Armed with this knowledge, it was evident that waste disposal costs via the solid refuse stream would be far higher than initially thought and IMC’s recycling solution made complete financial sense.

The Solution

IMC’s solution is the result of several years’ research undertaken by senior academic staff at Imperial College, London, to establish a cost efficient and highly effective process whereby commercial catering establishments can safely and simply recycle all of their food waste into high quality compost. The significance and value of this solution has already been recognised by several awards from the catering and waste management and recycling industries and its reputation as the benchmark solution for caterers is becoming firmly established.

Using an IMC Food Waste Disposer, the food waste is first macerated before extracting the solid fraction from the macerated waste by means of an IMC “WastePro” Dewaterer. At Great Hallingbury Manor, both of these appliances are located in the kitchen below ground from where the grey water exiting the Dewaterer is pumped to the ground floor for dispersal to drain. The dewatered waste is captured in small lidded bins and taken to the designated composting compound behind the hotel, where it is mixed with a small quantity of compressed wood pellets before being loaded into an In Vessel Composter. After approximately 6 to 8 weeks, the waste emerges as compost which is then stored in bays to promote further maturation.

Most significantly, at Great Hallingbury Manor, the compost is being used as a high grade soil conditioner with which to grow vegetables, fruit and herbs, all of them ingredients in the menu at Anton’s Restaurant.

The whole process takes only a few minutes each day and the equipment is simple to operate. As Ludo explains: “Although we are fortunate that our staff are very loyal and we do not have to contend with high levels of staff turnover, thereby demanding repeat education on operating procedures, the equipment is very easy to use and maintain and requires only a small amount of introductory training. We tend to run the system for the few minutes that are required either late in the evening or first thing in the morning.”

Restaurateur approved

Anton’s single-minded goal todelivering a new and exciting concept in food is being finally fulfilled at Great Hallingbury Manor. “I want to use only the finest local, organically grown ingredients in my menu and 40% of these are sourced from within a 50 mile radius of the hotel. As we extend our self-sufficiency ethos, more of our food will be home grown and reared so that around 70% of the vegetables and herbs we require will come from our kitchen garden.”

The hotel has a designated recycling area, where other waste streams such as tin, paper and cardboard are sorted and designated for collection. “Previously these items would normally be contaminated by food waste, which gave us little choice on how we disposed of them; now they have a value to us as recyclable materials,” advises Anton.

Ludo is now using Great Hallingbury Manor as a training ground for Bajan staff employed at his hotels in Barbados. He even believes that the recycling methodologies practised at Great Hallingbury Manor will ultimately be mandatory for all hotels and larger scale catering establishments in Barbados. “As with all the Caribbean, the island faces huge landfill problems and it is becoming imperative to find more sustainable solutions to dealing with waste.”

The Results

Both the hotel and Anton’s Restaurant have proved hugely successful. Even whilst building works continued on the hotel, the restaurant was constantly full with bookings being taken weeks in advance as customers flocked to this little village to enjoy the unique country dining experience. Repeat custom is exceptionally high and the hotel has already established an enviable reputation as a venue for weddings and functions.

In addition to the numerous local and regional awards that the hotel has already won, despite trading for little more than a year, Great Hallingbury Manor has been recognised for its green initiatives by winning a “highly commended” Sustainable Tourism Award 2009 and its entry submission accepted to the highly coveted “Hotel Booker Best Environmental Practice” award.

The ethos of eco-sensitivity pervades the whole operation with each of the hotel’s key functions, (restaurant, kitchen, housekeeping, reception, office and management), being represented on the “Manor Green Team” which reviews the success of current practices and looks at innovations for the future.

The Future

Over the next 2 years, Great Hallingbury Manor plans to broaden its environmental credentials still further. In an effort to extend the food waste recycling system’s benefit to the wider, local community, free capacity has been built in to enable the local College to have its food waste brought to Great Hallingbury Manor for recycling into compost, and thereby integrate with the children’s environmental education as part of an “Adopt A School” Government supported initiative.

The journey to become a carbon neutral hotel has reflected a real commitment to the future by the owners. The first year results indicate a reduction in energy costs of 52% against the costs for a similarly sized property using traditional energy supplies. As Ludo explains: “This is a way of doing business and, in the future, will be measured like any other business performance criteria. With all these measures in place,” he concludes, “we are striving to be the leading hotel in the UK in our approach to environmental and ecological issues. The luxury hotel experience is completely unaffected by our eco measures yet guests can ease their conscience secure in the knowledge that every effort has been made and action taken to ensure that there is minimal impact to the detriment of our environment.”