Ethical Travel - St Christopher's Go Greener
The Orient Espresso Goes Green
We want to take the edge of your mid air carbon footprint when you touch down in a St Christopher's city. That's why we're turning our hostels into eco friendly, shire like abodes – but don't worry. There are no low ceilings or large hairy feet in sight and the ceilings aren't made out of grass.
Story Highlights
- Reawakening The Go Green Policy
- Going Green With A Little Help From Our Friends
- Supply and Demand
- Where To Next?
Reawakening The Go Green Policy
A few months ago we decided to implement a Go Green Policy at the St Christopher's Inns. Our grand plans included buying green electricity, retrofitting shower heads and inviting the experts to take a look under our environmentally unfriendly bonnet. However just like HRT, change is slow so we decided to light a little environmentally friendly fire under one hostel and get things underway.
Going Green With A Little Help From Our Friends
Global Action Plan were a huge help to St Christopher's when we tried to wrap our brains around the mountain of Going Green information floating around the web. That's why we invited them to stage one of our plan at the Orient Espresso on Borough High Street. Amy Wilson is employed by Smart Works – a fifteen year old company who are partly funded by the London Development Agency. She was kind enough to be our guide during an Environmental Audit. Here's what we came up against.
Supply and Demand
One of the simplest ways to follow in the footsteps of the jolly green giant is to buy food and supplies from local sources. For example instead of buying a bucket load of polystyrene packaged produce from a corporate source, buy local products. By doing this you cut the pollution created by transport, reduce the amount of packaging needed and sustain a source that doesn't involve international shipping. So the more you do this, the cheaper local suppliers will become.
Score one for St Christopher's came from Borough Market which supplies the St Christopher's Inn. Score two was the quick, easy and painless step of buying cleaning products from suppliers like Ecover. These don't do damage to anything but the evil germs.
Next up on the check list was recycling. One of the biggest problems faced by the Orient Espresso is the amount of packaging generated from serving coffee and snacks all day. The rubbish from this Borough High Street outpost has to be collected three times a day by the local council. If this doesn't get dumped and is put aside for the less regular recycling lorry, it builds up and starts to present health and safety problems. However with a little bit of borrowed storage space and some trendy new recycling services (recommended by Amy) we're now on track to turn the tide.
A simple weapon in the fight against global climate change is changing the setting on your air conditioners. Locking the temperature at 24 degrees celcius uses less power, and requires less carbon to be burnt. Therefore less electricity needs to be generated and a nice comfortable temperature is maintained. Another simple tip that we took on board was to follow Persil's high profile advertising example and wash bed linen at 30 degrees, instead of 40.
Where To Next?
So those are the superficial changes but here's what we're planning in the long run:
- Replacing all lights with energy efficient bulbs. This makes a saving of £10 per bulb, per year and the bulbs last longer than conventional lights.
- Promote train trips instead of short haul flights. It might take a little while longer but the environmental benefits are staggering.
- Make the most of our in house design team, cut down on promotion costs and reinvest the savings in environmentally friendly printers.
- Use wooden, bio degradable cutlery in the hostels where the metal equivalents aren't available.
- Replace plastic boxes with bio degradable foam.
- Cut back on air conditioning costs by applying a cheap, heat resistant film to the windows. This stops the sun from turning the rooms into human ovens and removes the desire to reach for the fans.
- Trial toilet clogging devices. If these don't mess with the water pressure and they successfully reduce the amount of water, then they can be made into permanent features.
- Encourage office workers and café goers to choose Fair Trade Tea and Coffee. This is better for workers and the environment too.
- Finally we vow not to rest until the Orient Espresso is a monumental Green success and a cost effective example that leads the way for the rest of the St Christopher's chain.
If you have any hot tips on how we can go green then send them into submissions@st-christophers.co.uk
