Can you follow Novotel's lead?

Judging by Green Month (www.caterersearch.com/green), Caterer obviously has its priorities right, and we applaud your efforts in raising the profile of this issue. As such a large employer and contributor to the economy, the hospitality industry has a huge responsibility for reducing this country's carbon footprint. Independent hotels and chains have no excuse for not implementing change in their operations and services.

Without doubt, sustainability has positive effects on business performance and we believe that the benefits of this should be taken further. At Novotel London West, instead of keeping this profit, we plough the benefits of our water-saving programme back in the children's water charity, Plan. It makes sense, benefits the planet and inspires our guests.

Novotel London West was the first UK hotel to gain ISO14001 accreditation for our award-winning environmental policies, but two years on, we remain on our own. This is a shortfall we encourage other hoteliers to address. If the industry is committed to making a difference, then such schemes are essential. Novotel London West started by introducing small changes and as a team worked together to implement environmental efficiencies.

Our aim was not just to be even more efficient; we wanted to spread the efficiency message until it saturated our operations. We've found it has positive effects both internally (by streamlining our operations) and externally by helping our guests to themselves go green". Operating in an environmentally sustainable way is no longer an option - it's vital. We welcome the next hotel that joins us in our ISO14001 status. Hopefully your green issues will inform those planning their 2007 corporate social responsibility programmes.

René Angoujard
General manager, Novotel London West

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