Australia's Accor Hotels commit to Earth Hour 2009

Over 100 Accor Hotels across Australia will ‘switch off’ in support of Earth Hour on March 28th, in an effort to build awareness for climate change and the need to reduce global warming.

Accor Hotels have supported Earth Hour since its inception in 2007. Throughout the country, Accor hotels will again turn lights off or significantly reduce lighting throughout.

Guests staying at Sofitel, Pullman, MGallery, Grand Mercure, Novotel, Mercure, All Seasons and Ibis hotels during Earth Hour will be treated to a candlelight experience in restaurants and bars and encouraged to support the Earth Hour effort.

Accor Hotels are committed to sustainable business practices and the Earth Hour initiative complements other environmental initiatives undertaken across the hotel network. These include:

Green Globe Certification
Novotel are the first hotel brand to undertake Green Globe certification in the Pacific region with six hotels in Australia and two in New Zealand successfully achieving certification, and the remaining 19 hotels due to complete certification by June 2009. This will make Novotel the first hotel group in the region to be fully certified by Green Globe, the only international Benchmarking and Certification program based on Agenda 21 principles providing a framework for environmental and social performance improvement through independent third party verification.

Mercure Meetings Carbon Neutral Conferencing program
Since launching in February 2008, the Mercure Meetings Carbon Neutral conferencing program has successfully offset 1,700 tonnes of CO2 across over 5,000 meetings nationally, attracting the endorsement of respected government and private sector organisations. Under the Mercure Meeting program, Mercure hotels will fully fund offsets for carbon emissions produced during the conference. This cost covers the greenhouse gases produced during the meeting and the offset is used to fund green-efficient energy sources at no extra cost to the conference group.

Ibis Hotel ISO 14001 certification
In 2004, Ibis became the world’s first hotel chain to have secured the ISO 14001 environmental certification. This environmental certification – the most recognised worldwide – validates corporate management policies regarding waste reduction and water and energy consumption. Already one third of Ibis hotels have been certified ISO 14001. The Ibis brand has set its own target of having 75% of its hotels certified by 2010.

Plant for the Planet
Many hotels have towel re-use programs in place, but often these programs are not as successful because of a lack of promotion to guests, a lack of training for housekeeping staff or cynicism about how savings will be used by the hotel. To counter these issues and encourage greater participation, Accor has introduced a formula to determine how much savings can be made through towel re-use and pledged to donate funds to United Nation’s reforestation program. The program aims to plant 3 million trees by 2012 in seven of the world’s forest regions.

Accor pioneered the operation of energy efficient hotels with the opening of the Novotel and Ibis Olympic Park hotels on the eve of the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games. The two hotels were the first hotels in Australia to achieve ISO 14001 Environmental Certification (the highest level of environmental certification available). This Environmental Certification is now extended to include the newly opened Pullman at Sydney Olympic Park, one of the most environmentally-friendly urban hotels to have been built in Australia, targeting a 40% reduction in energy consumption and a 50% target for water conservation compared to similar city five-star hotels.

Accor is used to operating in environmentally sensitive locations with sustainable business practices adopted in hotels such as Novotel Barossa Valley Resort, Novotel Lake Crackenback Resort, Novotel Forest Resort Creswick, Grand Mercure Apartments The Vintage Hunter Valley and All Seasons Eco Resort Phillip Island. City based properties have also incorporated recycling, water saving and energy reduction techniques throughout their operation.