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9 Dec 2004

The Southern Right Hotel in Glencairn, Cape Town, has been chosen as a pilot project for the government’s ground breaking, Cleaner Production in the Hospitality & Tourism Sector project. The aim of the project is to develop a green rating system that will ultimately be used in the hospitality and tourism industry, thus helping to conserve the precious environmental resources that we have.

Says Sally Grierson, Marketing Manager for the Southern Right Hotel,”We are thrilled to be involved in a project of this caliber. Not only in the long run will it ultimately save us money, but it really touches very closely to the ecological issues that are very close to our hearts as an organization.”

A task team, appointed by the Department of Environmental Affairs and Development Planning, has recently run an audit on the hotel to determine what their current water, energy and waste consumption levels are. From these results the hotel will be able to ascertain what area’s they need to improve on and how to do things more efficiently. “With the current water crisis that we are experiencing in the Cape, this project can only be a good thing. Eventually, the spin off from additional facilities needed to competently deal with the cleaner production of resources in our industry, will lead to the formation of more employment opportunities and therefore also tackle the unemployment levels we face as a country,” comments Grierson.

Each hotel involved in the pilot project has undertaken to invest in upgrading their facilities in an endeavour to determine how much more proficient and green-friendly they can be. Factors that will be focused on are the recycling of goods, water saving plumbing and energy efficient electricity, to name but a few. The project will run throughout 2005 and hopes to place South Africa on the map as a green friendly tourist destination.