Cinnamon Grand promotes sustainable practices amongst suppliers

Aims to become Colombo’s leading sustainable city hotel by 2015

By Cassandra Mascarenhas
Further incorporating sustainability into their processes and business and working towards enhancing the environmental performance of the hotel, the Cinnamon Grand in association with the Switch-Asia programme hosted a ‘green forum’ yesterday in order to enlighten a group of key stakeholders – their suppliers – on sustainable practices.

Organised by the hotel’s sustainability division and the newly appointed ‘Green Team,’ the event focused on changing the traditional profits only mindset by enlightening the stakeholders on the importance of ‘greening’ their processes in order to supply environmentally-friendly products and services. This is also in line with the hotel’s vision of becoming Colombo’s leading sustainable city hotel by 2015.
Stakeholder support
Addressing the gathering, Cinnamon Grand Manager Marketing, Communications and Sustainability Tharika Goonathilake noted that the hotel’s successes would not have been possible without the valuable support from stakeholders such as their suppliers.
“Our suppliers are the backbone of this business. They ensure that we get all the products and services that we give our customers. However, the traditional way of looking at things and looking at expense, profit and loss has to change.  Did you know that customers are asking questions of their suppliers beyond traditional ones involving cost, quality and delivery standards?” she questioned.
“Today’s consumer  is very concerned about how the products are manufactured – where they come from, the lifetime of the products, how they are disposed of, how it affects the environment, the benefits to the local communities and so on. Those are the challenges and questions that we will have to face in the coming years.”
 “The traditional way of looking at things and looking at profit and income has to change. The world is going forward and the consumer of the future is very concerned as to how the products are manufactured: where they come from, how it affects the environment, the benefits to the local communities and so on. Those are the questions that we will face in the coming years.”
The Cinnamon Grand’s sustainability division firmly believes that to bring about positive change, knowledge and awareness is vital in order to groom their supply chain into supplying environmentally sustainable products and services. The forum was one of the many programmes the hotel has organised to ensure that all stakeholders are aligned to fulfil the goal of becoming a corporate entity that actually believes in a sustainable journey.
“It is not merely a buzz word that we use for marketing purposes. We want to make a genuine effort that the products and services that we produce and give our guests have been thought of and that we have taken into account the environmental, economic and social costs and benefits,” Goonathilake stressed.
Part of daily life
Greening Sri Lanka Hotels Industry Technical Service Manager Saranga Karawita while delivering a presentation at the event, which also featured a number of guest speakers from different industries related to the tourism sector, pointed out that sustainability will become a part of our daily lives, whether at home or when running a business.
 “Everybody has realised the importance of the triple bottom line approach, which expands the traditional business reporting framework to take into account the environmental and social performance of a business, in addition to their financial performance. People, profits and planet have to be considered together before we make a decision.
“Without chasing after only profits as done previously, we need to be more mindful of the environmental impact our actions will result in and how it will affect the society as a whole. We need to be accountable for our actions. Sustainability needs to incorporated into businesses, needs to be evident and should have lots of visibility,” emphasised Greening Sri Lanka Hotels Industry Technical Service Manager Saranga Karawita.
The Greening Sri Lankan Hotels initiative comes under the Switch-Asia programme, an European Commission funded project targeted at enhancing the environmental performance of Sri Lankan hotels through improvement of energy, water and waste management. Implemented by the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce, the project is also backed by the Travel Foundation UK, the Sri Lanka Sustainable Energy Authority and the Sri Lanka Institute of Environmental Professionals.
Although its key target group are small and medium sized hotels, Switch-Asia works with larger entities keen on employing environmentally sustainable processes. The programme works with hotels from all across the country, hosting similar events on a regular basis in order to raise awareness within Sri Lanka’s tourism industry. In operation for three years as of now, Switch-Asia currently works with 240 hotels and is looking to attract a 100 more by the end of the year.
Importance of going green
In his presentation, Karawita revealed that according to a survey conducted, 51 per cent of customers take sustainability issues into account when choosing a hotel. 87 per cent of consumers say that it’s important that their holiday does not damage the environment and a further 76 per cent feel that tourism should benefit the local communities in the destination.
“Hotels depend on suppliers and customers to become green. Sri Lankan tourist arrivals are increasing rapidly and we are expecting 2.5 million arrivals by 2015 – a big step up from the 500,000 we are currently getting. If we don’t start using our resources carefully now, they will run out eventually resulting in power shortages, lack of water etc.” he emphasised.
Karawita went on to say that hotels becoming more sustainable results in them becoming more competitive, more resilient to price hikes which is essential for survival and conserves resources so that others will also be able to use them. The implication of this for suppliers is that they will have a steady stream of business from the hotels, even during a downturn, which is essential for their own survival. The programme now works with around 50 suppliers in addition to the hotels.
Of the 240 hotels Switch-Asia is working with at the moment, more than 100 hotels have actively adopted or are in the process of adopting sustainable practices, showing good results with up to 15 to 20 per cent cost savings. Such hotels are also sponsored by the programme to participate at the World Travel Market and the International Tourism Exchange.
National Cleaner Production Centre Director Sena Peiris said that buyers are searching for safer and more sustainable solutions, that in many cases their existing suppliers do not currently offer.  He said that consumers and buyers in the future will require more details on a product’s environmental footprint and this will soon be a prerequisite as much as a criteria for supply selection as much as a price.
“You don’t want to be locked out from being a supplier because you don’t adequately pay attention to sustainable means of doing business or manufacturing products that disregard environmental implications,” he said.
Peiris said that scientific insights and research into the efforts of creating sustainable products are available and that suppliers must look into these areas if they want to compete in the future markets.
Pix by Upul Abayasekara