Sustainable Hotel News caught up with Billy Hughes, area general manager UK & Ireland The Ascott Limited. The Ascott Limited is a Singaporean real estate and lodging company and a subsidiary of CapitaLand, which has released its 2023 Global Sustainability Report which includes some fascinating innovations in sustainability for the built environment.
Hughes is at the forefront of Ascott’s UK & Ireland operations. He oversees a diverse portfolio, including The Cavendish Hotel, a four-star property located in the heart of Mayfair, which is soon to be re-branded under The Crest Collection. His portfolio also includes five Citadines Aparthotels in central London, Quest Aparthotel in Liverpool, and the soon-to-be-opened Mount Royal Hotel in Edinburgh and The Grand Hotel in Leicester under The Unlimited Collection.
We talked about Ascott’s brands and how it deals with different sustainability initiatives, showers and water usage, room energy management systems, the social side of ESG, what certifications mean and how booking sustainable hotels will change.
Editor, Felicity Cousins spoke to Billy Hughes from the Mount Royal Hotel Edinburgh by the Unlimited Collection, which will be Ascott’s first The Unlimited Collection (TUC) hotel in the UK and due to open on October 1.
Can you tell us more about new properties you are developing in the UK at the moment? I know Ascott has a new partnership with Chelsea Football Club becoming the official global hotels partners for the Premier League Club. That must be exciting?
BH: Yes. We have a hotel management agreement to take over the two current Millennium & Copthorne hotels in Chelsea [to be rebranded as lyf Stamford Bridge London next year], which is pretty exciting, and that will be quite a flagship lyf in terms of its global reach. We also just opened a lyf in Frankfurt and it’s a fast growing brand for us.
As well as the Edinburgh TUC (opening next week), we have Temple Bar Hotel, Dublin by the Unlimited Collection [due to open at the end of the year].
Over in Singapore, they’re really hot on sustainability, and I know Ascott has the lyf lab where it tests out different sustainability initiatives. Do you think lyf is one of Ascott’s more sustainably-focused brands?
BH: No, I would say that sustainability is prevalent throughout all of our brands. I don’t think you can differentiate. What I would say is the awareness of sustainability is probably more prevalent in lyf, and that’s probably because of the demographic of the customer.
Some of the buildings we’ve got in Singapore are a little bit more modern, therefore more eco friendly and if you take a look at our ESG strategy, they’re very community based as well. There’s a lot of activity around the community, which fits under our ESG strategy.
Somerset has the Sustainability Passport, where guests can be part of sustainable initiatives – surely that concept would work across all of Ascott’s brands?
BH: Some of these initiatives are driven by the property – one area manager, or one GM who’s really focused on it, and it grows legs and it sticks to one brand, and then grows outside of that. I would say that it’s probably just a little more focused, but that doesn’t mean that that activity doesn’t happen in our other properties.
We use a portal called Green View, and on that the properties have clear targets, so we do our ETS (environmental tracking system) through that, in terms of our energy consumption, but also within Green View the properties have to demonstrate their commitment to community and heritage initiatives.
Properties are uploading what activities they’re doing around community, corporate, social responsibility, etc. I was fortunate enough to go to Singapore for our 40th year anniversary, and we travelled around the periphery, on the edge of the villages, delivering food parcels to the local community. So all of those things happen in pockets and then it’s put into the overall view.
Can you give me some other examples?
BH: At The Cavendish [in St James’s, London], we’ve got local artists displaying their art. We’ve got a local artist in the Citadines Barbican doing a mosaic for us, and we’re supporting school meals for the local community and homeless initiatives. So all of those things are happening, but it’s just not concentrated around one brand.
That’s the interesting thing, isn’t it? When you’ve got so many brands for every demographic.
BH: We’ve got 14 brands but not all of those brands will reach every market, right? Certain brands are very localised to certain demographic customers. But our global strategy filters through every brand. There can be challenges when it comes to a property we’re just about to open but here [at the Mount Royal Edinburgh Hotel TUC] we’re fortunate that we’re taking over from a core with a strong sustainability. It’s when we go into properties where the owner has been reluctant, or has not seen the benefit, where it can be more challenging.
Can you explain more?
BH: We’re looking to reduce the carbon output and we’re looking for initiatives like our ESDL initiatives that we have in the UK, which is our in-room energy management system. We will speak to new owners and say, we’ve got this great system that will reduce your carbon output, that will provide guest comfort, that will provide other benefits as well as part of the system. But it’s a capital investment event with the return on value of x. The good thing is, now, though, we’re able to demonstrate proof of concept in some of our properties. Citadines Barbican and Islington have the energy management system installed and Citadines Holborn is currently being installed.
How does luxury and sustainability meet?
BH: We’re doing a significant refurbishment and repositioning of The Cavendish into the five star market, and we looked at knockdown scenarios, we looked at extensions but fundamentally, what we’ve landed on is a retrofit. That’s been really well received by the local community and Westminster Council. And for that property, we’re going for BREEAM as well.
As part of the research to build the business case, we asked a consultant to look at the importance of sustainability, on the traveller, on the future traveller in the luxury market. And what was interesting is there’s a definite desire to stay in a sustainable hotel, but they don’t want sustainability rammed down their throat.
They’re okay with a little green thing on the door, but they don’t want to be feeling guilty. I think if you’re staying at The Cavendish, you’re probably travelling more than the average person as well.
SHN: Did you look at 1 Hotel Mayfair as an example of that kind of luxury and sustainability?
BH: It’s a neighbour just around the corner for us, and one of their key messages is sustainability, and they put a huge amount of investment around it. Now, if you take The Cavendish, will we mirror that? No, but are we doing some really great sustainability initiatives? Yes. So we’re looking at the building envelope, we’re improving window insulation, we’re improving cladding and installation. We’re going to be doing some greenery on the building as well in Holborn, which we’ll do in The Cavendish as well. We’ll go for a sort of hybrid VRF aircon system as well so we’re reducing refrigerants, etc.
Can you tell is more about your in-room energy management system?
BH: In practical terms, it’s a little sensor that sits in the room, and that sensor is picking up certain waves, so it picks up occupancy. If you put your keycard in, and you stick your aircon up to 26 degrees and you leave your window open, and you walk out the door and you’re out in London for 10 hours, we’re just wasting energy. So what this does is it makes an intervention. That intervention will notice that the window is open, so it will cut the air conditioning off, or it will notice that you’ve left the room, and it will either bring the temperature down to an ambient temperature, or, depending on the outside or in-room temperature, it will cut it off.
And how has the roll out gone?
BH: We’ve put a little QR code around it and that links you to Ascott Cares and our sustainability information. So it was an interesting way of us saying, actually, why not shout about it? It’s doing this hidden stuff in the background but we want to tell guests what we’re doing and why their room feels really nice today. I think we’ve seen 90,000 tonnes of carbon reduction to date.
That’s obviously an investment that Ascott thought was worth putting in. HRS recently found that it’s a myth to say that sustainability is more expensive – it can actually save money.
BH: I completely agree with you. It’s a big investment, you know, but the ROI can be under three years. Beyond that, there’s a small recurring maintenance.
And with CSRD big companies won’t be staying in places that aren’t showing that data. I imagine there’s an increase in questions about sustainability on the RFPs that you’re seeing?
BH: Yes, there is. I think certainly over the past five years, we’ve seen that creep up. Now I’m involved in the RFP season. I am the direct link from sales to operations to understand, what are the certifications we’ve got? What are the certifications we’re going for? What initiatives do we have in place? How do we track our energy? What are we doing about single-use plastic? I think it’s an internal shared learning, because all of those things are happening, so we’re able to meet the needs of the RFP.
Can you tell us more about water usage?
BH: We wanted to test our water consumption. Say, for example, it was 11 litres per minute, we wanted to see how to get that down to five or three litres per minute – without impacting the guest experience. We’ve gone with Hansgrohe showers and we’ve implemented them in three of our Citadines properties now [Islington, Barbican and Holborn as part of the retrofit of Holborn], and then we’ll do that with The Cavendish as well.
It reduces the consumption. Every tap is different, and every shower is different depending on the location of the building, but fundamentally, we’re reducing it by about 50 per cent.
In terms of green building certifications Ascott has gone for EDGE? What about other sustainable certifications for operations?
BH: Yes, there’s a real commitment from our owners to achieve that, because it means that we’re managing and maintaining their building effectively, and we’re utilising capital effectively. So, we’ve got EDGE for Citadines Barbican and Citadines Holborn and Citadines Islington has EDGE Advanced certification. Our goal is to have that across all of our buildings.
Citadines Barbican is currently going through GSTC certification and Citadines Trafalgar, Islington, South Kensington and Holborn are going through Green Tourism Gold Certification.
BH: We just upgraded our toiletries from the small ones to the large dispensers. We have eliminated bottles and plastic bottles from all of our bedrooms. So again, you know, a cost increase to go for the glass bottles. We’re working with suppliers to reduce how our food is delivered to us. And again, it’s low, but in terms of our breakfast, do bananas need to be wrapped etc. I think it’s achievable before 2028.
Ascott has green energy at all of its UK properties?
BH: Yes. We have green energy throughout all of our properties, as well as part of our procurement plan on our commodities.
What do you see happening in the next few years with sustainability? Do you think everyone will calm down or do you think there’s going to be this continued push?
BH: I think there’s going to be a continued push. I think there’s definitely going to be as part of the booking journey. I think it will become more obvious to the consumer and I think there will be more options for guests to book sustainable hotels, but those sustainable hotels will have to meet certain criteria. So I think there’ll be more consumer awareness on what actually sustainability looks like when it comes to accreditation when booking a hotel.
Felicity Cousins spoke to Billy Hughes on September 10th, 2024.
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