Martin's Brussels EU Hotel

Location

Belgium, Brussels

Description of the hotel

100 rooms distributed across 4 categories: Room classic (Cosy); Room upper classic – (Charming); Room Junior Suite (Great); Room Suite (Exceptional). Five meeting rooms.

(part of MARTIN’S HOTELS group, which comprises 13 hotels in Belgium)

Goal

Grow while taking into account the interests of future generations.

Step by step

The chain adopted a progressive environmental management system and a global sustainable development programme, ‘Tomorrow Needs Today’

For Martin’s Hotels, it was clear from the very beginning that an operation as complex as protecting the environment would need to involve as many people as possible.

For this reason, the group based their environmental policy on four action words: act, inform, train and motivate. By making these principles widely known, and by suggesting easy steps to follow, Martin’s ensured that the staff, providers, and guests would be able to work together to minimise the hotel’s environmental footprint.

Certification

The environmental management system of Martin’s Brussels EU Hotel obtained the EMAS registration and ISO 14001 certification in 2012. The hotel has been awarded the Green Key label and the Enterprise ECO-DYNAMIQUE label.

Check out what worked for Martin’s Hotel and browse through our resources. Many will be useful for your business!

ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY INTRODUCTION: The Martin’s Hotels chain adopted a progressive, environmental management system and a sustainable development programme called ‘Tomorrow Needs Today.’ The structured processes put in place, which resulted in actual improvements in resource management, have led to Martin’s Hotels EMAS registration and ISO 14001 certification.

Follow a structured approach for your green efforts

You have started making some small changes, but you may not have a clear vision of what you want to do in the future. Start by identifying exactly where you stand and what is most important for you. A first step can be starting to regularly monitor your water and energy consumption. Establishing precise reduction objectives will help you realise potential savings and motivate your entire team.

Humans walk faster when they know how far they have to go and when they have precise objectives to reach on the way.

Read this article to find out how to introduce an environmental policy.

GREEN MOTIVATIONS FOR GUESTS: Martin’s Hotels management introduced programmes to make green behaviour more appealing.

For example, clients who organise conferences at Martin’s Hotels are offered the opportunity to offset CO2 emissions with clean energy initiatives in developing and emerging countries. They receive a certificate proving their efforts from CO2Logic, which they can use as a communication tool.

Another programme, called the ‘Eco-Bon’, helps guests reduce their environmental footprint by adopting some, or all, of these 5 simple actions.

• They can ask to have their rooms refreshed, instead of fully cleaned, every day;
• they can have their towels changed less often;
• they can manage their own energy use in the room (lights, heating, and air-conditioning);
• they can order an ‘eco-friendly’ meal; or
• they can ask to use the hotel’s shuttle service together with other guests instead of travelling by individual car or taxi.

By offering guests these options, and by introducing an ingenious sort of game, the hotel managed to both put their guests in an upbeat state of mind and reduce the hotel’s environmental impacts.

Give guests an easy way to get involved in sustainability actions

Making green choices easy is a great way to encourage guests to support your cause. Most of Martin’s Hotels’ strategies can be easily incorporated in every hotel, even if you have not (yet) started a fully fledged programme. You can place cards in each room to empower your guests to save energy, water and detergent by having their towel and bed sheet laundered less often. If you do not have them yet, download those we have prepared here and start using them.

You can also leave guests a welcome brochure that demonstrates all the small steps they can take to help your hotel be more sustainable (download the brochure here).

GUIDANCE AND TRAINING FOR STAFF - All staff members participate in Martin’s training programme ‘Tomorrow needs today’. Tailored courses are organised as needed. Moreover, Environmental Identity Cards have been introduced in Martin’s hotels to give all employees clear information on how they can contribute and how to minimise their environmental footprint. The cards contain a list of good practices to incorporate into everyday tasks, like consuming less water and energy and producing less waste.

Engage your staff in your green efforts.

It is very important to include your employees in your environmental programmes. Tell them about your plan, ask for their ideas, and work together. Making your hotel or restaurant more sustainable is a group effort.

Even if you cannot introduce training right away, look for other options. This website has plenty of resources. Have a look at our staff checklists - read our article explaining why they work and download them here. You will be surprised at how much you can achieve by giving simple guidance to your employees.

For example: Cleaning staff can optimise water use when tidying rooms by accomplishing a number of tasks in a certain order and only flushing the toilets once. Limited to one flush per room-cleaning, a standard 13-litre flush multiplied by 300 (days of occupation) can amount to 4000 litres of water saved per room per year.

INFORMATION FOR PROVIDERS AND SUB-CONTRACTORS: Martin’s Hotels integrate information about their green commitment into all the documents they issue. In tenders, they always favour those providers who respect the environment.

Check with your current suppliers about whether you can switch to greener options

Start by talking with your providers and sub-contractors. Tell them you have started to make your hotel/restaurant more environmentally-friendly. Ask if they can offer more sustainable options for some of the products you buy from them. Ask if they can take back the packaging for re-use. You may also actively look for different products and suppliers, such as organic food or detergents with the EU Ecolabel. If your current suppliers are not yet into these trends, perhaps your request will be a gentle push for them to think of turning green as well!

Read more about what you can do to improve sustainable supply chain management.

EASILY ACCESSIBLE INFORMATION: It’s important to find a space on the hotel's website to explain the environmental programme and the main results obtained. Explain what you are particularly proud of, this will make it easier for potential guests to be motivated and collaborate with good practices when they stay at the hotel.  In addition, the sales and marketing area has a very important role to play it can communicate to the customers the hotel's good practices and achievements via all means available  (newsletters, face-to-face, point of sale information, in the room directories, information available on the PC and terminals accessible to the customers in the hotel lobby, etc).

Update your website

Martin’s Hotels are very advanced on their sustainability path. It may well be the case that you have just started minimising your environmental footprint. Even so, you should start informing potential guests about the changes from the very beginning. Becoming greener is a process, and the more visibility your process has, the more support you will get from everyone – your staff, your providers, and your guests. With more people involved, you’ll progress quickly toward your first results. To do so, you have to tell others in the first place! It is a good motivational strategy to document the projects you plan to carry out in the future (with clear deadlines) and to make your concrete objectives and targets public. It’s much easier to stick to a clear plan than to follow through on vague ideas.

Read our article about communicating your green objectives and results.