This article is from page 15 of the 2013-11-12 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 15 JPG
TWO County Clare hotels owned by West Clare hotelier John Burke received the highest accreditation available under the Green Hospitality Awards (GHA) programme.
As a result of the award this week, Clare is now the leading county for the Green Hospitality Awards programme, with almost half the country’s ‘green hotels’ in the county.
The Armada Hotel in Spanishpoint and Hotel Doolin successfully reduced their energy consumption by almost a third and reduced the amount of waste going to landfill by more than 60 per cent.
The Clare hotels join an elite group of just seven Irish hotels who possess Platinum accreditation under the hospitality sector’s only environmental accreditation programme, which is supported by the EPA through the National Waste Prevention programme.
The programme inspectors who judged both businesses noted that jointly they reduced water consumption by 38 per cent per guest, cut the amount of waste going to landfill by 62 per cent, and reduce electricity per guest by 28 per cent since joining the programme two years ago.
“The green programme has led to a consequential reduction in operating costs at both hotels and in doing so has enabled us to offer the best possible value to locals and tourists, which is critical in order to compete in the current marketplace,” explained Mr Burke.
“Furthermore this programme has a rigorous way of inspecting our approach to greater environmental issues such as reducing our carbon footprint and landfill waste levels, to our social responsibility approach to more local issues like how we contribute to local charitable and voluntary causes, and the support we show for local food suppliers. Our efforts over the past 12 months have seen us significantly improve on our Silver accreditations in 2012 for the Armada and Hotel Doolin.”
Clare is currently the leading county for the Green Hospitality Awards programme, with Dromoland hav- ing also achieved Platinum status in 2011. Three of the seven Irish hotels now in receipt of the GHA Platinum accreditation are Clare-based.