Sir Albert shows how team effort turns little changes into big differences

Sir Albert Amsterdam, a boutique hotel located in De Pijp, the Latin quarter of Amsterdam and consisting of 90 rooms, is proud to be certified for its sustainable hospitality by Green Globe for the 3rd year in a row.

“2016 in particular has been a very successful year” says Sebastiaan Schaafsma, President of Sir Albert’s Green Team. “We are very proud of the team efforts put into the hotel’s sustainability program. People in every layer of the organization are aware of the impact their actions have on the environment.”

The hotel’s Green Team organized a ‘Green month’ to raise awareness with all hotel staff. The back of house areas were decorated with posters that shared information on sustainability; a special biological (organic) green lunch was served whilst green flags set a festive atmosphere.

Many team members participated by sharing great thoughts in the suggestion box on how to make our hotel operations more sustainable, of which we would like to highlight a couple that have been implemented recently:

– The Housekeeping department started to collect all partly-used mineral water bottles from our guest rooms to water the flowers and plants in and around the hotel premises, saving the use of tap water for this purpose;

– The Breakfast team is re-using the Biological (organic) jam glass jars for mini portions of fresh fruit salads to avoid using disposable packaging;

– The kitchen team used to switch on the grill as soon as they walked into the kitchen. They now light the grill just 30 minutes before service to save on charcoal and Co2 emissions;

– A box for empty batteries and printer cartridges is placed in the back office to make it as easy as possible for the team to recycle. The money earned from recycling the cartridges is donated to charity.

These are just a few examples we would like to share as best practices as these can easily be implemented by any hotel property around the world. It’s in the little things to make a big difference!

Green Globe is the worldwide sustainability system based on internationally accepted criteria for sustainable operation and management of travel and tourism businesses. Operating under a worldwide license, Green Globe is based in California, USA and is represented in over 83 countries.  Green Globe is an Affiliate Member of the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO). For information, please visit greenglobe.com