M&C Hotels to Cut Annual Energy Use by 10%

Millennium & Copthorne Hotels (M&C) has rolled out a large energy savings project, and a group of its Singapore and Asian hotels are already on their way to achieving its monthly target to cut energy consumption by 1.2 million kilowatt per hour (kWh), or 10% of its current energy consumption. These savings will be equivalent to the monthly energy consumption of over 2,350 three-bedroom HDB flats.

This project is a joint effort of Singapore’s five properties with a total of 2,315 rooms – Orchard Hotel Singapore, Grand Copthorne Waterfront Hotel, Copthorne King’s Hotel, M Hotel and Studio M Singapore – and eight regional hotels, Grand Millennium Kuala Lumpur, Grand Millennium Beijing and Millennium Seoul Hilton, totaling 4,195 rooms.

“We are focusing on how each hotel can do its part to reduce carbon footprint with eco-friendly measures,” said Lim Boon Kwee, Senior Vice President of MCIL, the Asian arm of M&C headquartered in Singapore.

M&C Hotels which started practicing energy-saving measures for some time, have been pushing to get energy usage cut by a significant reduction of 10%. They include dimming of lights in nonessential areas after midnight, and using minimal amount of lighting during guest housekeeping or setting up of events.

Investing in energy-saving infrastructure and technology is also one way that has helped the hotels increase their energy savings.

“For example, the 653-room Orchard Hotel has been saving more than $15,500 a month with LED lightings, heat pumps and chiller plant optimisation that helps achieve maximum savings from condenser water temperature,” explained Mr. Lim. “With these measures, the Singapore hotels have been saving over 463,500 kWh per month with these green projects in place. This translates to savings of around S$107,000 monthly or almost Sin$1.3 million in a year.”

Such efforts have won the group’s hotels the BCA Green Mark Gold Award, a green benchmarking scheme that recognises sustainable practices in environmental design and performance, project conceptualisation and construction. The ASEAN Green Hotel Recognition Award 2012 was even awarded to M Hotel in appreciation of the hotel’s efforts to practice environmentally-friendly principles.

On top of these ongoing efforts, the M&C hotels here are currently gearing to push their green initiatives further with the launch of a month-long energy-saving campaign together with Earth Hour.

A series of additional measures will be implemented like raising chiller temperatures from 6.5 degrees to 7.5 degrees, dimming of lights in public areas, and turning off the air-conditioning during office lunch hours or otherwise setting the temperature at 24 degrees. Façade lights for the hotels was also switched off between 8:30pm to 10pm during Earth Hour last Saturday.

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