All 360-odd Hilton Malta staff members were yesterday presented with a e350 mountain bike for their environmental efforts, which topped those of all the Hilton hotels in the Mediterranean region.
The initiative forms part of the Hilton’s we care! programme, in which the 16,000 staff across 79 Hilton hotels in Europe and Africa were challenged at the beginning of 2006 to identify environmental improvements and implement the changes.
After just one year, the Hilton Malta succeeded in reducing energy consumption across the site by 6.5 per cent, and by 15.1 per cent per guest night – equivalent to 40 GWh of electricity, or the amount of energy produced by the Delimara power station every five days.
The cuts in energy consumption also equates to a reduction of 5,800 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions, the equivalent of taking 1,200 cars off the road.
The reductions were achieved through staff brainstorming sessions, which came up with and implemented ideas such as converting the hotel’s boiler system from diesel power to natural gas, replacing some 3,000 halogen light bulbs with compact energy-saving lamps and separating over 100 tonnes of waste.
The hotel has also installed a new reverse osmosis plant that produces 39,000m3 of drinking water from sea water, recycled 16,000m3 of waste water into second-class water for irrigation, and safely disposed of 200kg of batteries, 300kg of bulbs and lamps and 11,000 litres of cooking oil. The hotel has also managed to save over 89,000m3 of water, equal to 35 Olympic-size swimming pools.
The hotel has also planted some 200 trees in various nature reserves across the Islands, and is the first hotel in Malta to have been granted a European Eco-label Certification for the environmental procedures put in place.
And while such measures undoubtedly involve costs, the benefits of saving on electricity and water are more than evident from the Lm1 million in costs avoided by the hotel through the environmental initiatives.
The hotel next plans to introduce the mechanism of solar cooling, which effectively converts solar heat into cooling elements for air-conditioning and chillers.
Speaking at yesterday’s press conference, Environment and Rural Affairs Minister George Pullicino lauded the hotel staff’s efforts, and delved into some initiatives being promoted in government departments and ministries.
These, Mr Pullicino explained, include the installation of photovoltaic panels on almost all ministries and a programme of changing old neon tubes for more energy-efficient lighting elements, which has seen electricity consumed through lighting falling by a remarkable 40 per cent.
“These are small things, but their sum total is large,” he commented.
Also speaking yesterday, Tourism and Culture Minister Francis Zammit Dimech called on Malta’s hotel industry to “emulate at least part of the example set by the Hilton.”