Rotana Corporate Sustainability Report 2017

63 Water is an essential commodity that has valuable application throughout our business, and we take care to use this resource efficiently. As a majority of our hotels are located in the Middle East and Africa which are areas that are water-stressed or water-scarce operating regions, we recognise that reducing water consumption in our operations is an important element of optimizing our environmental stewardship while trying to influence and inspire our stakeholders on the importance of better water management. To standardise our approach across our operations, we are working on publishing a bespoke water management guide, to spur solutions and approaches to water use reduction. We incorporated water management criteria that is part of the annual audit undertaken by the corporate director of engineering. All hotels are required to manage their water resources through understanding the balance of water use, compliance with regulatory requirements, effluent water discharge quality, conservation practices, and reporting usage. 2017 was another year of significant progress for Rotana’s water footprint. Much of this progress was attributed to consistent reduction initiatives. Water conservation efforts have been achieved through water efficient product substitution, improvements to our buildings, leak detection and reporting, addition of water savers on tap and shower heads, substitution of laundry chemicals with low water consuming chemicals. Rotana’s total water usage includes room guest use, cooling, pools, recreation areas, kitchen cooking, cleaning and other miscellaneous uses. Our water resources include municipality water and wells. Water usage data is tracked and reported monthly through the monthly engineering report on sustainability data. We continue to improve our data accuracy through monitoring and measurement. Only 4 hotels treat their waste water using grey water recycling systems and on-site sewage treatment plants. Water 72% of taps are fitted with water savers. 57% showerheads use low flow features. In conjunction with our efforts towards sustainability, we have adopted in our laundry operation a high performance, sustainable approach, low temperature laundry chemical by Ecolab, Aquanomics used in all UAE hotels. We have successfully tested the programme in 2016, and while the quality of our linen has remained stable, soft and white, we achieved the following saving And as we continue to grow globally, thoughtful consideration is placed on the type of operations, hotels water treatment systems and availability of water sources. A company-wide focus on reuse and internal recycling is placed for new hotels to further boost our reduction. As a result of our improved water efficiency practices, the water intensity (litres/guest) has decreased to 21.3% between 2013 and 2017. Our 2020 target is to achieve a 25% reduction on the 2013 baseline. Trial Result – Overall Summary During the Laundry Trails at 3 Rotana properties, the actuall average saving were as follws: Water 37% Energy 23% Time 23% 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 Water Intensity (cbm/guest night) 0.61 0.56 0.51 0.54 0.50 2013 2012 2011 2014 2015 2016 2017 3,500,000 3,000,000 2,500,000 2,000,000 1,500,000 1,000,000 500,000 0 Total Volume of Water Used (cbm) 3,179,040 3,136,425 2,603,949 2,588,605 2,577,557 2,330,023 2,440,775