Sentido Palm Royale Resort Soma Bay Annual sustainability report 2016/17 New Concepts.New Trends Introduction Environmental projects Monitoring resources Future Plans
Introduction: Sentido Palm Royale with 445 rooms, 5 restaurants, 5 bars and an impressive landscape with more than 75000 m2 at the pristine beach of Soma Bay has a long history of environmental success, out of the days of Intercontinental. After reflagging, the management has continued to minimize the environmental impact and taken responsibility to set targets on sustainable tourism. In fall 2014 we implemented a linen reuse system, established a quiet area, published a green booklet and continued with monitoring our resources consumption. In May 2016 we implemented a towel card system, which is also saving energy, water and chemicals in our laundry operation. Since the year 2011, in which Egypt went through a revolution, working on sustainability became a tough challenge, as prices went up for energy and the supply was not really stable. With the low occupancy due to the political situation, it was quite hard to achieve set goals. However we strive to reach best achievements.
Palm Royale Resort Environmental Projects: Several projects had been chosen according to its efficiency, implementation cost and saving, which will return to the company Implementing motion sensors In 2014 we started to implement motion sensors in areas which need to be lighted all day along to decrease the consumption of electricity With the motion sensors, we guarantee that light switches on only, when needed. Our target is implementing more than 40 sensors all over the hotel in different areas like public toilets, pool plants, pumps rooms, chillers station and boilers room. Pool LED Light Pool lights are also a source of very high electricity consumption. We replaced the entire swimming pool lamps From 300 watt to LED 35 watt. Landscape Saving Light Another area, which needs our efforts, is the lighting of the landscapes. One of the factors, which are not affected by the occupancy. Whether the occupancy is high or low, lighting of the landscape stays the same. Therefore we decided to change the halogen lamps by saving bulbs with 5-11 watt. We achieved a very good result by changing all the landscape light by energy saving lights, which are controlled by timers, in order to optimize the operational period.
Rooms & Outlets LED Lights Another big consumption category is guest rooms and some public area like the lobby and corridors. We already replaced the normal lights by LED in 320 rooms from 445 rooms and our target to replace all by the end of 2018. Solar Heaters Solar energy is becoming very prominent and the dependence on fossil fuels is being reduced gradually all over the world. Sentido Palm Royale is not a hotel chain and therefore the investment in solar energy, after a period of slow business since January 2011 is not an easy step. Still the initial cost in Egypt for renewable energy alternatives is very high. As the government is supporting this move and signed some contracts with companies in Europe and China, we are expecting an increase of availability and competition in this market, but the increasing of the prices let us to postpone this project in 2017. So we keep this plan for the next years on hold.
Monitoring Resources We believe that by monitoring our sources of consumption, we can keep better control and we can analyze and reduce it by comparing between our actual consumption and the occupancy, as well as the fixed consumption, which is not depending on the occupancy and looking into the reasons led to a raise or decrease in consumption in different months. Monitoring Electricity The below chart shows that the average of consumption per pax in the year 2017 is less than 2016 and less than 2015, which had a very high consumption due to the political situation in these years, which was effecting the occupancy and led to an increase of the average consumption. We still continue to reduce our consumption by constant replacing the normal light bulbs by LED in guest rooms and public areas. Electricity Monitoring 2014,2015,2016 & 2017 126.0 KWH 88.3 84.0 74.0 2014 2015 2016 2017 2014 2015 2016 2017 Year
Monitoring Water Monitoring the water consumption we found that the average consumption for 2016 is more than 2014 & 2015. This is because we added in 2016 more than 750 m³ of grass and also the total number of staff in 2016 was increased. By monitoring and controlling the irrigation system and by installing more water savers we reduced the average consumption in 2017. Water Monitoring 2014,2015,2016 & 2017 M³ 3.1 3.4 4.0 2.7 2014 2015 2016 2017 2014 2015 2016 2017 Year
Laundry/HK By implementing a linen reuse program we are encouraging the guests to participate and supporting us in saving chemicals, water and energy. We achieved a good number of saving, but still trying to increase the interest for this project. Implementation of towel card for the beach and pool in May 2016 is supporting the savings in our laundry operation Saving linen card LE 5,000.00 4,000.00 3,000.00 2,000.00 1,000.00 - Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec 2015 2016 2017 Month
Cost Control We are monitoring the waste regularly and train the staff on avoiding food waste We are monitoring the chemical and paper supply on monthly base. It is part of the monthly Head Department tasks liaising with financial control. Chemical consumption in 2016 was higher than In 2015, due to the low occupancy. Summary Chart Wet Waste 250000 200000 150000 100000 50000 0 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 Pax Guest Staff Chem icals ltr. per pax 3 2.5 2 1.5 1 0.5 0 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 Ltr. Per pax Printing paper consumption total 2000 1500 1000 500 0 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 Paper total
Social Activities We were conducting Clean up days and participating in the earth day clean up
Celebrating Orphans day with the children of Safaga twice a year
Celebrating staff birthday and staff member of the month party with General Manager
Future Plans The main point, which has to be considered in the present and future, is how to minimize the energy and water consumptions. So we will continue in the LED replacing project until we will have replaced all the normal light by LED in rooms, swimming pools and public areas.