Whitbread’s pioneering sustainability efforts for its two leading brands, Premier Inn and Costa garnered national recognition last night at the BITC Responsible Business Awards. The company picked up the coveted Asda Environmental Leadership Award for tackling climate change and making savings through two new environmentally friendly building projects – the Costa Eco-Pod, the UK’s first zero energy coffee shop, and hub by Premier Inn, a new brand of compact city-centre hotels.
hub by Premier Inn on St. Martin’s Lane in London has achieved 40% less water usage and 30% less energy usage than building regulations require, whilst 100% renewable energy supplies the site. The Costa Eco-Pod in Telford achieves neutral energy consumption, with renewable energy created on site balancing out the cost of energy consumed. Both models are replicable at scale and are great testing grounds for pushing innovation and seeing what can be done by combining technologies together.
“Whitbread’s challenge is to ensure that, as we open new hotels and coffee shops we manage our carbon footprint and minimise our energy usage, water consumption and production of waste. I’m delighted that we’ve won this award which recognises the innovative and tremendous work our teams are doing to build a more sustainable business and set a standard of environmental leadership for the hospitality sector,” said Alison Brittain, CEO at Whitbread.