Fairmont’s new Green IT strategy: Evolving responsibly

Read more about: carbon, carbon footprint, Climate Savers, Energy Star, EPA, Fairmont, hospitality, Hotels, recycling, resorts, responsibility, technology, WWF

Fairmont Hotels and Resorts has made many headlines for its efforts in environmental lodging, and is well known in the industry for being environmentally progressive. Now, the company is taking its commitment to green responsibility even further with a new IT strategy to limit waste, purchase responsibly, conserve energy and reduce the company’s overall carbon footprint.

Fairmont’s new Green IT works to address its technology infrastructure and information technology (IT) operations. It includes the introduction of a workstation power down schedule, electronic waste diversion in markets where programs exist and the development of donation standards aligning with qualified and respected recycling companies and charities.

Powering down to power up

Green IT is the latest component of the Fairmont award winning Green Partnership program – a program started in 1990 that focuses on minimizing the impact of hotel operations on the environment -  and will be rolled out property-wide throughout 2009 with full implementation expected by the end of the year.

“Whether it’s technology, environmental sustainability, or any other aspect of the hotel environment, Fairmont continues to roll out pioneering programs and services that are reflective of our vision: to be a true leader in the global hospitality industry,” says Vineet Gupta, Fairmont’s senior vice president, technology.

”With technology still evolving rapidly and e-waste on the rise, this is an area where we can make a tangible impact in addition to lowering our overall CO2 footprint. Furthermore, our industry-leading environmental practices are the benchmark by which many other hotel companies measure against, so we’re pleased to expand our green programming into another distinct area of our business.”

The hotel company is also optimizing purchasing efficiencies, including crafting a green procurement policy to ensure the brand uses technology products that are either EPA Energy Star or Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT)-rated as well as services that address Extended Product Responsibility (EPR) programs.
In support of the new Green IT initiative, power settings on all Fairmont workstations and laptops, which are centrally managed by the brand, will be set to automatically power down after one hour of inactivity. By adopting this power management principle, Fairmont expects to reduce its energy consumption by 2,692,683 KwH per year, resulting in a savings of 1,356 tonnes of CO2, the equivalent of avoiding the burning of 3,155 barrels of oil annually.

Green IT is the latest piece of environmental news from the company following a March announcement in which Fairmont became a member of WWF’s Climate Savers Program and pledged to proactively cut its overall carbon emissions by 20% below 2006 levels by 2013.

For more information on Fairmont’s Green Partnership program, visit www.fairmont.com/environment.

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