Swissôtel Chicago is committed to environmental responsibility through sustainable business practices. We embrace public awareness and foster commitment to our environmental mindset, while capturing our associates’ pride, passion, and involvement. We foster “good neighbor” partnerships, measurably reduce pollution and drive energy conservation.
Recycling Programs
The property embraces the fundamental waste mitigation concept of “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.” The property maintains an aggressive effort to capture all recyclable materials to include: cardboard, plastic, glass, steel, aluminum, office paper, newspaper, fluorescent light bulbs, cooking oil, toner cartridges, batteries, pallets and crates. Additionally, all unused amenity bottles are delivered to the Resource Center, an organization which benefits homeless and battered woman and children in the Chicagoland area. In 2009, our recycling program reduced our carbon footprint by 1.36 metric tons.
Water Efficiency Program
Our guest linen program allows guests to select their linen changing preference. With our guests’ participation, we are able to reduce the total number of loads per year, in turn, reducing our overall water consumption. Water conserving fixtures or retrofits are located throughout the hotel including 2.2 gpm faucets and 2.5 gpm shower heads. Our landscaping company’s environmental standards include the use of plants and trees tolerant of climate, soils and natural water availability.
During the opening of the hotel’s new Event Center, we introduced a linen free meeting concept as part of our Sustainable Meetings program. In less than one year, this program saved over 27,000 gallons of water.
Energy Conservation Program
Energy efficient lighting is used in guest areas, guest rooms, meeting rooms corridors, garage and heart-of-the-house. HVAC equipment has recently been updated for energy efficiency. All air handlers are additionally connected to our B.A.S. (Building Automated System). Programmable on/off timers and/or sensors are used for lighting and HVAC in low-traffic and low-occupancy areas. This includes the heart-of-the-house, corridors, meetings rooms, storage rooms, fitness center and equipment rooms. Moreover, the new Event Centre is equipped with motion sensor lighting in all lavatories and LED lighting throughout the new building reducing our energy consumption by 50%.