A case study in sustainable hospitality: London's One Aldwych

Sustainability certifications have not paused at the altar of luxury hospitality. Just like the rest of the design world, high-end properties around the globe are increasingly put under pressure from guests and official tourist bodies to lay open their approach to combatting climate change and ensure a sustainable stay.

Living up to this task, however, comes with a particular set of challenges when trying to offer a personalised, hyper-local and often opulent experience. Which is why many thoughtful approaches to hospitality sustainability move at a granular level rather than throwing blanket solutions at the problem.

We speak to Janine Marshall, General Manager at London's One Aldwych hotel, about how the property has made sustainability part of its DNA and what measures can be taken to move toward a carbon-neutral footprint in addition to gaining official accreditations.

These official accreditations can present challenges as what works in one location of the world and/or caliber of hotel doesn't necessarily translate across the board. In the luxury space, we want to ensure that our sustainability efforts are meaningful to our guests beyond the accreditation alone, and that these efforts are relevant to the place and landscape in which we're located.

We aim to be authentically sustainable in everything we do (product sourcing for in-room amenities, culinary programme, etc.), and oftentimes those are beyond the requirements of the various accreditation programs. It can be difficult to communicate this level of sustainability and care to guests when they're not associated with a particular accreditation title.

Absolutely. In the hospitality sector, clients are buying into an experience rather than a product. We don’t offer cookie-cutter experiences – everything is personalised – and ensuring they remain sustainable while meeting the needs of our clientele can be a challenge. Additionally, a hotel functions very much like its own destination. That is to say, how we reduce our carbon footprint on the food in our restaurant is very different from how we do so with our gas, electricity and air conditioning of guest rooms, but it all plays into the larger picture of what we're seeking to achieve.

I consider Considerate Hoteliers, BCORP and Earthcheck to be the highest forms of accreditation in the hospitality sector.

Sustainability is at the heart of everything we do, and has been for over 20 years. We speak to our guests and our design and brand partners to assess what’s important for them, and to them. From locally sourced goods to low-impact lighting, water and electricity, to upcycling materials and composting waste, sustainability is our promise – it's in our DNA.

In practice, examples of this include using natural and paraben-free SLS bathroom amenities from British-based companies or the fact that our drinking water is filtered in-house through our own hotel system using reusable glass bottles. We also introduced a rooftop garden to sustain the health of our urban bee population and use their honey throughout the property. Our swimming pool is completely chlorine-free and uses a mineral-based cleaning system and our food waste is composted on a Kent farm with vegetables grown on the plot served in our restaurants – it's basically table-to-farm-to-table dining!

Due to the historic nature of the building, you could say the hotel in its entirety is a project of adaptive reuse. But one thing I'd highlight in particular are the EVAC systems we adopted into each guest bedroom to flush all lavatories. These have been part of the building since the 60s, and rather than changing it as part of the 2019 renovation, we kept them in place due to their optimised water usage. The EVAC vacuum toilet offers up to 90% saving on flushing water compared to a standard toilet. EVAC vacuum toilets use only 1.2 liters/0.3 gallons of water per flush, compared to 4-9 liters/1-2.4 gallons per flush for dual-flush gravity toilets. As a bonus, EVAC vacuum toilets also suck 60 liters/2.1 cft of air per flush, making them more hygienic than traditional toilets.

Our drive to source within the UK and reduce our carbon footprint (90% of our suppliers are local) is more than a desire, but a passion. It's at the heart of ensuring sustainability throughout the property. To streamline the Building Management System, the hotel has introduced Conserve – a carbon footprint monitoring system. All daily water metre readings, gas, electricity usage, room occupancy, food covers served, etc. are entered to give a monthly report of wastage. This allows the team to work out energy use per room in Kilowatts.

A truly sustainable luxury hotel is carbon neutral or positive, but still able to provide pampering experiences to its guests, providing five-star service in such a way that isn’t diluted by the carbon footprint element. This often comes down to partnerships as much as system-internal processes – making sure that long-term manufacturers, designers and brands are aligned when it comes to sustainability values. Responsibility has to be taken all the way down the ecosystem, from day-to-day operations to the materials and amenities provided.

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