Hotel and gaming group Tsogo Sun on Wednesday joined the 49M initiative, becoming the 120th blue-chip company to do so since the initiative, which is aimed at making saving energy a national culture, was started in 2011.

Tsogo Sun had an existing environmental strategy in place across its 90 hotels and 14 casinos that had already seen a 3% reduction in energy use during the course of this year; however, through the 49M pledge, the group has committed itself to a further 10% reduction in energy use.

Speaking at the pledge-signing ceremony, held at the Southern Sun Montecasino Hotel in Johannesburg, Tsogo Sun chief marketing officer Rob Collins stated that the group would focus on behavioural change to meet the 10% target. 

“Energy savings can only be sustainable when there is buy-in from employees and, eventually, guests. As behavioural change can only be made when the success of initiatives are measured, we have established an energy steering committee that meets every month to review the energy and water performance and develops strategies for improvement,” Collins said. 

Also speaking at the signing ceremony, 49M spokesperson Andrew Etzinger stated that environment-friendly tourism was becoming increasingly important and, therefore, for businesses in the hospitality industry, such as Tsogo Sun, being environment-friendly and energy efficient was not only the responsible thing to do, but also made business sense.

“The mindset of tourists and international tourists, in particular, was changing with regard to environmental issues,” Etzinger emphasised.

Collins pointed out that Tsogo Sun’s relationship with Eskom dated back to 2006, when it embarked on its first demand-supply management (DSM) initiative involving hotels in the Western and Eastern Cape.

Through that initiative, heat pumps, hot water demand control technologies and efficient lighting were rolled out, resulting in a 1 MW demand saving and a 6.5 GWh energy saving.

Tsogo Sun’s second DSM project saw the roll-out of these initiatives to the rest of the group’s South African hotels, resulting in a 2.77 MW demand saving and a 6.5 GWh energy saving.

Further, as a third DSM project, the element water heaters at 39 hotels were replaced with heat pumps, yielding 4.2 MW of demand savings and 14.4 GWh of energy savings.

Finally, the fourth DSM project involved replacing all 35 W and 50 W diachronic down light lamps with 7 W and 10 W light-emitting diode (LED) lamps throughout the group’s hotels and casinos.

“This replacement was undertaken over two months and was successfully completed in December 2012, with 107 214 LEDs installed throughout, resulting in yearly energy savings of 23 911 MWh,” Collins said.

He added that, from a baseline established using the April 2009 to March 2010 period, Tsogo Sun had successfully achieved a saving of 12.8% or 19 GWh.

“One of the most successful interventions implemented during this period has been the introduction of an energy dashboard throughout all hotels, which effectively measures and monitors energy demand and consumption, water consumption and liquid petroleum gas consumption,” he said.

The system had analysis tools and a warning system with a proactive alarm that sent SMS messages to maintenance managers and general managers of the properties.

Meanwhile, Collins pointed out that Tsogo Sun had also worked in partnership with environmental certification company Heritage for the past three years, and that property-specific environmental management systems aimed at energy, water and waste management, as well as responsible procurement, had been developed for all its casinos and hotels.

In this period, all Tsogo Sun properties had achieved a minimum Heritage silver standard, with 59% being on a gold standard and 5% achieving a platinum standard in the latest audit cycle. Average scores for the properties had improved from 59% to 72% compliance with the Heritage standards over the past three years.