Architect and Builder Magazine South Africa November/December 2013 | Page 27

At Hotel Verde it is
believed that if you
can’t measure it, you
can’t manage it

pre-wash cycle of the next load. No evaporative
cooling is used in the building.
At Hotel Verde it is believed that if you can’t
measure it, you can’t manage it. For this reason
all water, electricity and gas is sub-metered
in order to track how much of each resource
is being used at all times in each sub-system
and area of the building. This information will
be automatically tracked and recorded by the
advanced building management system. The
building maintenance manager will have access
to this data and will then be able to identify
where efficiency is dropping and perform the
required maintenance.
The hotel owner and operators are
passionate about saving energy and water and
believe that it is of no use to have a state of the
art building that is run and maintained suboptimally. An extremely detailed operations
and maintenance plan with be available to the
operator to help correctly use and maintain all
systems within the building in order to maintain
the highest possible degree of efficiency across
the board. The vision and passion for looking
after the environment and conserving energy
and water will be passed down to the staff.

Hotel Verde

Staff across every discipline will be trained and
incentivised to adopt a lifestyle of sustainability,
not only at work but also in their own homes
and communities. This will be achieved
through regular training workshops, education
programmes and performance reviews.
Owner and project team alike are passionate
about sustainability and are using the hotel and
its cutting edge innovations and technologies
to demonstrate what can be done towards a
more sustainable future as well as to educate
people of the need to move in this direction.
Green notes and display screens strategically
placed throughout the hotel will describe
sustainable principles implemented. Guest
rooms will have a dedicated TV channel for
displaying educational videos on sustainability
and statistics on the energy and water use of the
hotel. Guests will be incentivised with a credit
system to reuse towels and linen and not use airconditioning thus increasing their awareness of
the energy and water saved in doing so. Tours of
the hotel will be offered to visitors and guests.
Programmes are being developed with schools
in the local community to give tours to and help
educate children. Hotel Verde is strategically

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