hub by Premier Inn Hotel Earns Outstanding BREEAM Rating

Whitbread’s newly launched hotel concept, hub by Premier Inn, in London’s Covent Garden, has become the first hotel in the UK to achieve an ‘Outstanding’ BREEAM rating at design stage.

The hotel at St Martins Lane, which cost Whitbread in excess of £30 million to build, includes state of the art heat, cooling and energy saving technologies to drive efficiencies.

Gavin Dunn, Director of BREEAM said, “I’d like to offer my congratulations to Whitbread. This is a real achievement at the hub by Premier Inn, Covent Garden. It shows a strong commitment to innovation and sustainability and as the first Outstanding rated hotel in the UK provides an exemplar for the industry as a whole.”

The hotel, which has been designed with innovation, sustainability and user-friendliness in mind, includes lighting and heating in bedrooms, which guests can control from an app.

The heating and cooling for the hotel guestrooms and restaurant is provided by variable refrigerant flow (VRF) air source heat pumps, which incorporate heat recovery technology and result in lower overall carbon emissions, when compared to traditional gas-fired boilers and conventional chillers.

Domestic water is provided by a combined heat and power (CHP) energy saving unit with thermal storage, while low energy LED light fittings have been installed throughout the hotel and restaurant to minimise energy wastage.

In addition hub team members are trained in energy and water awareness to promote sustainable behaviour and good environmental housekeeping.

Simon Ewins, Director of CSR at Whitbread Hotels and Restaurants and COO of hub said, “As a global standard, achieving the highest BREEAM rating for a hotel in the UK is a real step-change for the hospitality industry. The rating demonstrates that even with heavy water and energy usage by guests, companies can prioritise sustainability alongside great customer service.”

BREEAM is one of the world's foremost environmental assessment rating systems for buildings. Over 425,000 buildings are certified with BREEAM assessment ratings and two million registered for assessment since it was first launched in 1990.