Ecology and sustainability

OUR COMMITMENT

Given the environmental challenges we face, our goal is to reduce waste, water consumption, carbon intensity and food waste.

In our day-to-day activities, we strive, wherever possible, to avoid wasting resources. Furthermore, we aim to reduce our impact on the environment by reducing water and electricity consumption and encouraging recycling.

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Water

The importance of water should not be taken for granted. That’s why our hotel has water-saving facilities: our toilets are equipped with water-saving cisterns, and we encourage overnight guests not to have their rooms cleaned every day.

This enables us to make our guests aware of the importance of saving the water used for cleaning rooms and laundering sheets and towels.

When cleaning the hotel on a daily basis, non-chemical cleaning products are used to avoid water pollution and contamination.

Electricity

The hotel is currently heated by fuel, but our commitment is to reduce energy consumption. In the long term, we plan to install renewable energy equipment.

Since 2018, we have installed double-glazed windows in 90% of our rooms and reduced heating time and heating temperature. Furthermore, high-traffic areas are equipped with automatic LED lights to reduce electricity wastage.

Paper

Paper consumption has a considerable environmental impact, leading to
deforestation, massive water and energy use, and waste problems.

In recent years, rather than simply recycling paper, we have decided to reduce its use in our day-to-day tasks in order to minimize our impact on the environment.

Plastic

Plastic pollution has become one of the world’s biggest environmental problems. Single-use plastics account for 36% of the plastic produced each year (UNEP, Visual Feature | Beat Plastic Pollution. (2022, March 1), pollute natural habitats and threaten flora and fauna worldwide.

As recycling is implemented in our hotel, we are committed to reducing the use of single-use plastic in guest rooms and meeting facilities.

As of this year, there are no more single-use plastics in the rooms: plastic bottles have been replaced by cardboard water bottles, and single-use toiletries have been replaced by bulk products.

Bees

Le Plaza has installed 3 beehives since the beginning of April 2014 on the 3rd floor terrace. This action is part of our efforts to reduce our ecological footprint. A team of employees has been set up to look after these beehives.

Half of the territory of the Brussels-Capital Region is covered by green spaces, 8,000 hectares of which harbor an extraordinary biodiversity. This diversity, combined with the absence of chemical products, make cities a paradise for bees. With the Botanical Gardens (400m) and the Parc Royal (1 km), bees will find the biodiversity of flowers they need to produce honey, which is becoming increasingly rare in the countryside due to monoculture and the intensive use of pesticides and other phytosanitary products.

The question of urban pollution could be raised, but numerous analyses have been carried out and no traces of lead, mercury or other pollutants have been detected in city honey. Finally, the higher temperatures in the city ensure a longer flowering period than in the fields, lengthening the foraging period and increasing honey production per bee.

To produce 1kg of honey, bees travel an average of 40,000 km and collect 500,000 flowers. Between March and July, each hive is home to 80,000 bees and a queen who can lay up to 2,000 eggs a day. The first harvest was 20kg, and as the city honey is of excellent quality, it is offered to our VIP clients and the hotel team to thank them for their commitment.

Please do NOT clean my room

A new program was launched in 2022, “Please do not clean my room”, allowing guests to choose not to have their room cleaned. In exchange we will plant a tree in collaboration with Ecologi.

This program raises awareness among our guests of the importance of saving water. It allows us to save water and at the same time partially offset the emissions caused by the hotel by supporting reforestation projects around the world.

This program has been a great success since its launch and, to date, we have already planted over 2500 trees.

Events

In our objective to completely reduce the use of single-use plastics, we are proud to announce that we have eliminated all such use at our meetings, and can now guarantee plastic-free events. Moreover, our guests can ask for organic and local menus. We also give them the option of donating leftovers from their event to associations to avoid food waste.

Despite our efforts to significantly reduce impacts and emissions, we know it’s impossible to achieve zero impact. Nevertheless, from mid 2024, in collaboration with CO2Strategy, we will be offering our customers the possibility of calculating the environmental footprint of their events and offsetting their emissions. This will enable our guests to be aware of their emissions and participate in reforestation programs in several parts of the world.

Our sustainable suppliers

In recent years, social and environmental responsibility have become the focus of our actions, so we have decided to work and collaborate with suppliers who adhere to the same values.

Most of our suppliers have eco-labels and certificates that prove their commitment to producing quality products and services while taking care of their impact.

Extract from an interview with Nedlin:
“Le Plaza is a holder of the Green Key sustainable label, we try to be part of a sustainable development approach: is this also one of your priorities?”
“Sustainable development is one of our priorities and part of our corporate values. Nedlin’s teams have developed a “Nedlin Sustainability Program” made up of 4 precise ecological objectives, and then measure the results. For a period of one year, an objective is assigned to one of our teams, who must then develop it and ensure that progress has indeed been made. For example: to raise our customers’ awareness of sustainable development, we offer two choices: the “classic” product or its sustainable version. In the case of Le Plaza, you have chosen to replace the classic products with their sustainable variants, at a higher cost but in line with your “Green Key” ecological policy. Another example is the installation of solar panels, which have enabled us to cut energy consumption by 50% at Hoensbroek and even 66% at Stein. For our latest project, we are studying the possibility of replacing petrol with LNG (Liquefied Natural Gas) for all our trucks, which would mean a 25% reduction in CO2.”
“Nedlin is on the way to becoming a company with zero consumption, can you tell us more about that?”
“A 0 consumption is too ambitious in the short term, The technology is not yet developed enough but I assure you that we are doing everything possible to get closer to it. As Caesar said, ‘I would rather be first in that little village than second in Rome’, and I couldn’t agree more.”

Mobility

Within our teams, we are committed to promoting soft mobility. We encourage the use of public transport, walking and cycling, in particular with the installation of new bicycle parking facilities.

To support this approach, train and STIB season tickets are reimbursed at 100%. Telework is also encouraged and practiced at least one day a week to avoid the need to commute.

Furthermore, business travel is kept to a minimum and replaced wherever possible by videoconferencing or audio-conferencing. When avoiding travel is impossible, train travel is preferred to air travel.

The hotel also plans to equip itself with hybrid vehicles for less polluting car journeys.

Eco-cheques

We aim to raise awareness of our environmental responsibility among our employees, so that they too can adopt a sustainable lifestyle. Since 2009, we have been providing all our employees with annual eco-cheques, which they can use to purchase eco-friendly products and organic food. In this way, we encourage them to adopt our commitment in their private sphere too. Thanks to the Green Key label, the majority of eco-cheques are usable and accepted at the Plaza.

During 2019, the use of eco-cheques enabled an estimated CO2 saving of 274 thousand tons of CO2. This represents 0.23% of Belgium’s total annual emissions and has a societal cost of between 21 and 42 million euros.

The “Green Key” certificate is a standard of excellence in environmental responsibility and sustainable operation within the tourism industry. This prestigious certificate represents a commitment by companies to ensure that their tourism facilities adhere to the strict criteria stipulated by the Foundation for Environmental Education (FEE).

The Green Key represents an accommodation’s promise to its guests that by choosing to stay there, they are helping to make a difference to the environment and to sustainable development. The high environmental standards expected of these establishments are maintained through rigorous documentation and frequent audits (Green Key – Green Key Programme, n.d.).

Greenkey Certificate Le Plaza Hotel

Greenkey Certificate Le Plaza Theater

The “Entreprise écodynamique” label is an official, free accreditation. It rewards and encourages companies, non-profit organizations and institutions in the public or private sector in Brussels that take steps to reduce the impact of their activity on the environment.

The label assesses eco-management processes according to a scale of three levels of environmental performance: one, two or three stars. It highlights initiatives in areas such as waste prevention and the circular economy, rational energy use, good management of employee mobility and sustainable food (Label Entreprise Ecodynamique, n.d.)