The CORAL BAY Hotel*

Case Study

Location of the Coral Bay on Phuket Island

The hotel is set in the heart of the busy district, near the beach.

The Coral Bay comprised 91 rooms, and had 92 full time staff.

Before Greener Business Asia

The Coral Bay hotel had started an environmental programme, which included initiatives in

the area of waste management (such as the sale of cooking oil, reduction of waste from

guest amenities packaging and others), and the organisation of green activities, such as

beach cleaning days and butterfly release. The hotels sensitivity to environmental and

efficient issues was also clear in the choice of energy saving equipment for lighting in

selected areas).

* Fictional name

What was required was a more comprehensive and systematic program that could enable

the mainstreaming of good environmental practices into the overall hotel operations and

management and in the daily routines of staff , enhance further staff participation and

workplace cooperation, and help the Coral Bay to target other areas of workplace

improvement beyond environmental issues.

The participation in the GBA training and advisory support program

When asking what the owners expectations for joining GBA were, Khun Nid answered: Its

is our practice to have CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) and business running in parallel.

But we wanted to have CSR integrated to business solutions. We wanted to

be a new generation hotel working on environmental and social issues and

protect our earth

Khun N. Owner and Director of Sales of the Coral Bay

In October 2011, the CORAL BAY became one of the participants in the pilot program of

Greener Business Asia, organized by the ILO in collaboration with the Faculty of Hospitality

and Tourism of the Prince of Songkla University. The Coral Bay had members of both

management and staff join the GBA Core Training and Elective Sessions.

The training aimed at equipping hotel teams with tools and knowledge to staff and

management to improve their hotels resource efficiency and environmental impact,

workplace conditions and relations and overall competitiveness through a model of worker-

employer cooperation.

- The core training covered joint problem solving tools and techniques (including fishbone diagram and mapping); core concepts on environmental management (including behavioural changes and good housekeeping for energy and water conservation, the basics on waste management); workplace relations and worker management cooperation (including workers and employers rights and responsibilities, key principles of workplace cooperation); occupational health and safety and the 5S.

- Elective sessions provided more in-depth coverage of energy efficiency, water management, waste management and green procurement, Occupational Health and Safety level 2, HR for service excellence.

A first outcome of the training was the establishment of the core of a joint team that would

include members of staff and management. The team would be in charge of leading the

improvement process.

A second outcome of the training was the development of an initial Green Improvement

Plan by the core team, which set out key priority areas of action.

Following the core training, the hotel teams implemented improvements and received in-

house support and coaching by thematic experts, who provided advice and helped

monitoring progress.

Key areas of focus identified by the CORAL BAY included waste management, occupational

health and safety, energy efficiency, HR and service quality.

After GBA

Workplace cooperation

At the CORAL BAY, a large staff-management team with representation from across hotel

functions and departments was set up and took charge of driving the change process.

GREEN HEART

There are 22 members in the Green Heart team

The Green Heart Team during the GBA final presentation day, Phuket, June 30th, 2012.

Formal Green Heart meetings are usually held every month. In addition, since participation

in GBA, environmental issues has been well integrated into the Standard Operating

Procedures (SOPs) of the hotel on a daily basis, and certain aspects of the program are also

discussed in the morning briefing or orally within each department.

The establishment and operation of the teams is one of the key mechanisms of workplace

cooperation. It creates a space where staff and management can discuss issues, voice

concerns, and take joint, collaborative actions. The key areas of focus are related to resource

efficiency and productivity, occupational health and safety and waste management, but the

principles and values of open communication, respect and cooperation are relevant to any

workplace issue.

Efforts to facilitate more active and wider participation from staff across the organization are

also supported by campaigns on environmental challenges, revival of suggestion and award

schemes, more systematic and exhaustive communication with staff through multiple

channels (see section below).

The chain of communication is good. The atmosphere is relaxed

and everybody can speak their mind if they have a good idea,

says Khun Suparat Jamsong, Assistant Chief Accountant.

Khun Suparat Jamsong, The Coral Bay, June 2012

Waste Management and Green Procurement

Waste was recognized by many of the hotels participating in the pilot Greener Business Asia

program as one of their key problems, a burden they had to dispose of, unable to identify

any real opportunity related to it.

Before joining GBA, the Coral Bay had a basic waste management system, mainly selling

cooking oil and all other unsorted waste to a single collector. Separate bins were available in

some places, but the segregation was typically not implemented in practice and integrated

the daily routines.

Waste management has been a central point of attention of the Coral Bay in the GBA

program. The team started by setting up a waste committee, with assigned responsibilities,

and it provided waste management training adapted to each department specificities. The

House Keeping department and Kitchen did develop training on waste management based

on the template given by GBA, which were subsequently delivered by Head of Departments

(HoDs) to their teams, using pictures of type of waste to segregate.

Training on waste management, January 2012.

With the help of the knowledge the Green Heart team members gained in the course of the

GBA training on waste, particularly the concept of the 3R (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle), and the

tips on setting up a waste management system, they looked at various problems, trying to

identify main causes and devising solutions to address them. Brainstorming and joint

problem solving served to generate useful ideas to address waste management issues and

set up a better system. Some of the actions taken and achievements are described below.

REDUCE

* Recognizing that a large amount of

waste generated at the Coral Bay was

coming from disposable packaging, a

person from the procurement

department joined the waste

management team to incorporate

environmental criteria at the

purchasing level and communicate to

suppliers the hotels new

environmental stance. Fruits and

vegetables that were wrapped in

individual plastic packaging are now

delivered in crates which are taken

back and reused once the produces are

stored, and some products like sea food

are now purchased in bulks to reduce

plastic waste.

Crates used for food and vegetable delivery

* Instead of disposable plastic bags, the Coral Bay designed reusable laundry bags made

of fabric which reduces the amount of plastic waste.

* Before GBA, the Coral Bay only had approximate figures on the amount of food that

ended up in the bin each day. One of first steps the waste management team took was to

keep precise records on food waste. Subsequently, many actions have been implemented at

the F&B and Kitchen level.

* A Love Food Hate Waste campaign has been set up at the staff canteen, to raise

awareness about the importance of saving food and invite staff to only take food portions

they could finish.

* The Coral Bay put in place a food audit, to identify the type of food that was

wasted, and in what quantity. Based on criteria such as the nationality of guests staying at

the hotel and their food patterns (for instance little pork available when Middle-Eastern

represent a large share of the guests), the Coral Bay managed to reduce its food waste

significantly, and down the line to save money at the procurement level.

* In addition, the waste management team identified that a large amount of salad

ended up in the bin after each service. They decided to assign two employees to serve salad

to guests, instead of the original self-service system, and reduced dramatically the mount of

salad that was thrown away.

RESULT: daily food waste went down by 42% since joining GBA, from 300kg to 175kg per

day!

REUSE

The Coral Bay Waste Management Team identified ways to reuse some items that originally

went d