Green Practices Second Nature at Royal York Hotel

By Valerie Sheppard

TORONTO, Ontario, Canada, April 23, 2003 (ENS) - In 1929, when the Royal York Hotel officially opened, it was considered a trendsetter. Three quarters of a century later the Royal York is still a trendsetter. Located in the heart of downtown Toronto, this grand old hotel possesses an environmental program that rivals some of the most environmentally conscious operations in the world. In fact, according to Melanie Coates, director of communications at the Royal York, the staff successfully diverted 73 percent of its total waste from landfill sites in 2002.

While the inspiration for implementing an environmental management system, also known as an EMS, usually stems from the desire to lower operating costs, the beneficiary of such a system is the natural environment.

The cream colored Royal York Hotel stands amidst more modern buildings overlooking Lake Ontario. (Photo courtesy Fairmont Hotels)

The Royal York is one of 41 hotels owned by Fairmont Hotels and Resorts. In the early 1990s, Canadian Pacific Hotels & Resorts, now known as Fairmont Hotels & Resorts, began developing green programs at its hotels throughout Canada.

The company began by forming environmental committees at each hotel and then conducting nationwide environmental audits. Company officials sought advice from professional environmental consultants and the cooperation of employees to begin the process of greening hotel operations.

What emerged from the committees, the audits, and the consultants' reports was a program of waste and resource reduction and recycling.

Today, energy and resource reduction is achieved through the use of lower wattage and fluorescent light bulbs, low flush toilets, and low flow showerheads. Waste reduction is achieved through many innovations, including buying practices that seek to limit excessive packaging.

Purchasing policies emphasize the elimination of hazardous chemicals and synthetic perfumes, a conversion to unbleached and recycled paper, and the replacement of aerosol products with alternatives that do not deplete the ozone layer.

For the hotel's seven restaurants, local farmers supply some organically grown foods, and the kitchen staff works to minimize water use and eliminate waste.

Fat vats in the kitchen of the Royal York Hotel (Photo by V. Sheppard)

In the hotel's cycle of use and reuse, any left over kitchen grease is not washed down the drain. Instead, the grease is saved for a company that picks up the oily waste for use in its soap products.

Guests are asked to help the Royal York with energy and waste reduction. Each guest room has a recycling box and instructions on the box informing guests what to place inside. Every bathroom bears a card that asks guests to consider reusing towels in order to lessen the amount of laundry detergent being washed down the drain and into the environment. A card is placed on each bed that advises guests that bed linens will be changed on a daily basis by request only.

Every day, the contents of hundreds of garbage pails and recycling boxes is sent down to the basement of the Royal York. Here a small staff of dedicated employees sorts through the garbage, separating the recyclable items from the non-recyclables.

Coates points out that these hardworking individuals take great pride in their jobs. Their work is considered important not only to the hotel, but also to the environment.

Royal York employee Arnold Atayde stands beside the cardboard crusher he uses to compact cardboard boxes. (Photo by V. Sheppard)

The adopt-a-shelter program provides thousands of items such as beds and chairs to the victims of domestic abuse who wish to make a new start. Many items that cannot be repaired in the basement of the Royal York for use in the hotel, often see a new life, like the velvet curtains from a ballroom that became a local school’s stage curtains.

An environmentally friendly conference program, dubbed Eco-Meet, was developed to assist meeting planners in conducting reduced waste conferences. Options include menus featuring a 50 percent reduction in animal protein and vegetarian cuisine, meeting room recycling stations, biodegradable corn pens, food and beverage service that uses no disposible items, guest room environmental services, and ecotourism activities for meeting delegates.

From its rooftop herb garden to its basement recycling program, the Royal York employs an environmental management system that could be the standard in environmental management for hotels. To inspire environmental action within the industry, Fairmont Hotels & Resorts has created "The Green Partnership Guide" as a handbook for employees and all those who wish to make an environmental difference.

Still, not everyone is content with Fairmont's environmental policies. On April 17, a nine meter (10 foot) tall inflatable grizzly bear joined protestors wearing giant eyeball masks flanked by a banner stating, "The World is Watching" as they met shareholders entering Fairmont’s Annual General Meeting at the Royal York Hotel.

Demonstrators say the company's decision to build a business convention center at Lake Louise in the Banff National Park is "irresponsible." They say Banff is already the most commercially developed national park in North America and a construction project of this magnitude is likely to impact the park's threatened grizzly bear population.

Fairmont began construction of the seven story 150,000 square foot convention center last summer and continued to build through the winter months in spite of public protests, warnings from bear biologists, and two pending lawsuits, one from the Siksika First Nation.

The Siksika First Nation and the Banff based environmental group, Mountain Parks Watershed Association are in court challenging the issuance of a permit which would allow Fairmont to increase the amount of wastewater produced by their Chateau Lake Louise Hotel complex. The plaintiffs claim such a permit would negatively affect the water quality of the Bow River and impact land claimed by the Siksika First Nation.