Service With A Green Smile

Several commercial entities in Singapore are doing their bit to reduce
energy usage and promote “greener” operations.

In this article, we take a look at two such businesses that are setting
the standard in eco-friendly operations in their respective industries.

The Regent Singapore

With a host of environmental awards to its name, The Regent is currently considered Singapore’s greenest hotel. But their “Save the Earth” movement started off more than a decade ago when certain individuals took small but crucial steps towards environmental sustainability. Soon after, these efforts from employees were recognised and officially announced and integrated as part the hotel’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Programme.

Mr Baharruddin Lee, The Regent Singapore’s Director of Engineering, was tasked to assemble and lead a committee that aimed to reduce the hotel’s environmental footprint. He explained: “Some hotels are hesitant to go green because there is a misconception that it will increase their costs, labour and time. But this is far from being true. In fact Regent has reduced its operating costs considerably by going green.” Mr Lee recollects that the committee started off with a large-scale project recycling paper, plastics and food waste. This exercise successfully halved the amount of waste generated by the hotel’s daily operations. Next up on the team’s agenda was reducing energy consumption. They began by converting all incandescent light bulbs into the more energy-efficient Compact Fluorescent Light bulb (CFL) variants. In 2006, the hotel embarked on another huge initiative. It replaced its boilers with a heat recovery system that supplies hot water to the whole hotel. This unique process also produces chilled water used in the air-conditioning system, which helps cool the rooms and lobby faster and with lesser energy. Despite its implementation costs, the hotel broke even in less than two years and energy consumption dropped by almost 30 percent. The Regent Singapore’s eco-friendly efforts have been so successful that Mr. Lee has been tasked with assisting sister hotels to initiate their own green efforts, and he has hopes that other hotels will follow suit. Mr Lee’s parting message was poignant. He stressed that the effort to go green should not be centred about dollars and cents. It should be about saving the earth so that the future generations will also be able to enjoy it as we are doing now. THE REGENT SINGAPORE’S ENVIRONMENTAL AWARDS: Energy Smart Hotel Award Awarded by National Environment Agency (NEA) Green Mark Award (Gold Plus) Awarded by Building and Construction Authority (BCA) Certified Water Efficient Building in November 2008 Singapore Public Utilities Board ASEAN Green Hotel Award Awarded by ASEAN Secretariat