Yesterday I was invited to the launch of the first of its kind energy and water benchmarking report of UAE’s Hotels by the Emirates Green Building Council, a great step for Sustainable Tourism. Globally Tourism contributes to 5% of global carbon dioxide emissions, so it’s important to focus on sustainable tourism to control the carbon emissions of the country.

Energy and Water Benchmarking for UAE Hotels 2016

Emirates GBC is formed in 2006 with the goal of advancing green building principles in UAE. Hotel benchmarking 2016 is one of their newest initiative, where they collected data from 46 hotels in the UAE to provide an overview of the UAE hospitality sector’s energy and water performance. Out Of the 46 hotels, 25 are Eco-certified hotels by bodies like Green Globe, Green Key, Earth Check, etc. 25 Hotels have installed energy efficiency features and nine are connected to the district cooling network. The data of energy and water consumption over a period of 3 years was gathered and processed by qualified professionals who are members of EGBC like Majd Fayyad using a specially developed software by Mr. Sarfraz Dairkee of M.A.H.Y. Khoory & Co. LLC. The study analyzed the Energy Use Intensity and Water Use Intensity of the hotels.
Occupancy is a major influencing parameter for water consumption, therefore water use intensity per guest night (WUI) is considered for water benchmarking in the report.

Saeed Al Abbar, Chairman of  EGBC presenting the report

Out of participating hotels, 57% have a 5-star rating, an interesting and shocking point to note the report states that Dubai’s 5-star hotels consume 225% more energy than their 5-star counterparts in Europe. Though generally 30% to 50 % of energy is used for cooling in hotels which are based in a hot and humid climate; in UAE this percentage is even higher and reaches 70% in a typical 4-star hotel. I think it’s high time for UAE hotels, to adapt to DEWA recommended 22 degrees temperature in summer and focus on operable windows for winter. From my experience, I have complained in many hotels in UAE while on staycations that their air conditioning control is not working properly if I need to increase the set temperature or even switch off option is not available. Providing more control to guest can result in considerable energy savings.

Key findings

Annual Normalized Energy Use Intensity Graph

• There was unequal water and energy performance across the UAR hotels.
• EUI, an internationally accepted norm for benchmarking of hotels, was found to vary between 104 and 721 kWh/m2. year across the hotels; a median UAE hotel has an average normalized EUI of 283kWh/m2.year.
• The values of WUIs (Water Use Intensities) per guest-night ranged between 30 to 399 Imperial Gallons/guest-night.year
• Poor performing hotels consume 3 times the amount of energy (in kWh/m2.year) and 7.4 times the water compared to the best performing hotels.
• High potential for significant savings with viable and affordable existing technologies.
• The significant and negative correlation between the year of build and the water consumption which necessitates a deeper focus to be put on the replacement of old fixtures and proper maintenance of water systems.
• The significant impact of laundry services and landscaping on the water use intensities

Limitations of Energy and Water Benchmarking 2016