Novotel Benoa Bali is the first Accor hotel in Asia to achieve Green Globe Certified, a Green Globe qualification which recognises the hotel’s commitment to successfully implement an integrated Environmental Management System.

The resort was assessed according to 8 key performance areas that seek to guarantee a range of environmental measures including better waste management, community development, chemical products control, and energy and water consumption control. Novotel Benoa Bali is to undergo an annual on-site certification audit as part of the pilot program during the first year, and thereafter every 2 years.

Philippe Le Bourhis, General Manager of Novotel Benoa Bali said ”We are encouraging our partners to find ways to reduce the impact of climate change and take significant steps to preserve Bali as a resort island. Our team is very enthusiastic about Green Globe program and has made significant improvements on energy saving by recycling waste water and collecting rain water. In April this year, we collected enough funds in order to plant 1,763 trees at Accor Indonesia’s tree planting project in Gelandang Village in Central Java, adding to the 76,000 trees that Accor Indonesia has planted for the project”.

Through the hotel’s guest room-towel re-using program, in which guests are invited to reuse their towels instead of having them re-laundered, Novotel Benoa Bali has committed to planting 1 tree for every 10 re-used towels. “We actively invite our guests and encourage them to participate in our environmental initiatives by seeking their feedback on a regular basis,” added Le Bourhis.

Novotel has always been a pioneer in the hotel business. Since it was first set up, 40 years ago, the chain has evolved, anticipated its customers’ expectations, and proved innovative in terms of well-being, comfort and sustainable development.

Novotel’s long-term concern for the environment began as part of Accor Group’s Earth Guest programme and is now embraced as an integral part of the hotel chain’s brand. This commitment is based on three main strands of activity: drawing up appropriate construction standards; involving its employees in sustainable development on a daily basis; and involving its customers. In order to affirm this operational commitment, in July 2007 Novotel began its association with Green Globe, the
international environmental certification programme for responsible travel and tourism. By doing so Novotel has become the leading hotel chain in the mid-scale segment to involve its entire network in sustainable development.

Novotel began its involvement in the Green Globe certification programme in July 2007, through an initial pilot phase, at 28 hotels in 12 countries across five continents.

The countries involved were: the United Kingdom, Switzerland, France, Brazil, the Ivory Coast, India, China, Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, Australia and New Zealand. Today Novotel has three certified hotels: Novotel Sharm El Sheikh, Novotel Lyon Part Dieu, and Novotel London Tower Bridge. Moreover two hotels are about to be certified: Novotel Shanghai Atlantis and Novotel Benoa Bali.

Each hotel is assessed according to eight performance criteria that will guarantee, among other things, better waste management, less pollution, and energy and water consumption control. Each hotel will be audited in order to obtain Green Globe certification after six to 12 months, then every year in order to guarantee that the criteria are being maintained.

By the first half of 2008, the 28 pilot hotels in the Green Globe programme will have passed the assessment stages for their certification. Following this success, Novotel will move on to the second phase of its longterm commitment, by extending this certification process to all its hotels. So, by the year 2010 all Novotel hotels should have been committed to the Green Globe environmental certification programme. With this commitment, Novotel reaffirms its primary goal: to be – and to remain – the benchmark in terms of hotel innovation.

And in so doing, the hotel chain is proving that it has always shared the visionary values of writer Antoine de Saint Exupery: “We don’t inherit the Earth from our ancestors: we borrow it from our children”.