Best Western and environment
Successful Best Western membership is based on responsible hotel entrepreneurship. This means that Best Western member must continually make a commitment to outperform its competition in meeting and exceeding the needs of the travelling public in cleanliness, comfort, courtesy, and a fair return on their travel investment.
Best Western Quality Program ”turns” green
All Best Western hotels share the same international service and quality standards. Also each hotel is quality assessed every year by trained assessor. As part of the quality program, in 2011 all Best Western hotels are to have own green program that defines the procedures to save water and energy as well as how the hotel is handling recycling. The hotel is also required to provide local conservation support. Environmentally-friendly Best Western hotel may be recognized from Green leaf symbol.
Along its own green program, Best Western encourages the hotels to join national green programs and obtaining green certification. For example in Finland, Best Western Hotel Haaga (Helsinki) and Best Western Hotel Raumanlinna (Rauma) have been certified with Swan eco label.
Carbon footprint calculator to assist in hotel choice
Traveler can now calculate the carbon footprint of his/her stay at Best Western hotel. The calculator tells the amount of greenhouse gases the hotel stay causes. The result the calculator Best Western hotels use combines three greenhouse gases: carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O). The measurement used is kilograms of CO2 equivalent (kg CO2-e).
Hotel stay’s carbon footprint is a result of many operations and services used in hotel. A few examples of energy consumption at the hotel are the lights, air-condition, heating, and as simple as use of a lift. The size of the hotel, the design and services also affect to the size of the carbon footprint.
The carbon footprint calculator gives hotel guest information about the impact of the hotel stay. The calculator also produces a report for the hotel management that can be used to set up targets to lower emissions and consumption.
To carbon footprint calculator
* Establishing carbon footprint calculator for a hotel requires operational statistics from a full year. Thus the newly build properties do not show on the calculator.
