Savings in the City, a three year pilot program conducted by the City Council, works hand-in-hand with 30 hotels in Melbourne to reduce water use, emissions and waste going to landfill. Each year tackles a different subject: 2006 for water, 2007 for waste and 2008 for energy.

Waste figures show that hotels are saving on average 4.8 litres per guest per night which equates to 2410 tonnes annually. That’s the equivalent in reduction of 401 garbage trucks from being dumped at landfill. The total saving for two years, across the 30 hotels, has been 628 truckloads of waste.

Hotel Ibis, Crowne Plaza, Grand Hyatt, Holiday Inn Flinders Lane, and the Jasper Hotel are just five of the 30 hotels that have reduced their environmental footprint by taking part in the Council’s Savings in the City programme.

Lord Mayor John So agreed the results from the City of Melbourne’s Savings in the City pilot program were extremely promising.

“The City of Melbourne has a firm policy in relation to reducing emissions, waste and energy in the City through its Zero Net Emissions 2020 strategy and this program clearly demonstrates that we can all play a part to make this happen,” the Lord Mayor said.

“We congratulate each of the hotels that has demonstrated the commitment over the last two years as the benefits show it cuts down on operating costs, improves infrastructure performance and ensures better day-to day management.”

Energy figures demonstrate the total energy saved by the 30 hotels over the last two years equates to 24,769 tonnes of greenhouse gas or 2890 households – the population of East Melbourne.

Chair of the Environment Committee, Cr Fraser Brindley, congratulated the hotels involved and urged them to continue and to spread the word about Savings in the City.

“What we have seen over the last two years is on average a reduction of water use of 15.3 litres per guest per night and that’s an equivalent saving of 25.4 Olympic swimming pools. Over the two years hotels have saved the equivalent of 45 Olympic swimming pools,” Cr Brindley said.

“Holiday Inn on Flinders formed an environment committee, quickly adopted key actions and got staff motivated. One small example is that it reduced its waste disposal costs by almost 50%, or $9,000 per year as a result of diverting its cardboard and paper from the landfill stream to the less expensive recycling stream.”

Once all hotels fully implement their waste reduction plans there will be an average $10,000 cost saving and a 31% average annual reduction in waste to landfill per hotel.

All hotels were supplied with consultant support, training toolkits, and later a Hotel Enviro Collator to facilitate the collection of energy, water and waste bill data over the financial year.

The cost of the program over the three years for the City of Melbourne has been around $200,000, including a part time staff member. Other partners include Sustainability Victoria, the Smart Water Fund and Green Globe – the international accreditation scheme.

The third part of the pilot program, Energy Wise Hotels, will be launched today, Tuesday 4 December from 9.30am-12noon in a free seminar for hotels at the Jasper Hotel, one of the program participants.