GREEN POLICY

The Ritz takes its commitment to minimising its impact on the environment very seriously. Our aim is to reduce our energy use by 3% every year for the foreseeable future.

Insulation
All the windows are double-glazed, and the entire building is thermally tested every year to monitor en

Food and Drink
The Ritz London’s policy demonstrates our dedication to the environment in sourcing only fresh, seasonal ingredients from local, sustainable, and organic suppliers where possible. We recognise our responsibility to retain a reduced carbon footprint, whilst continuing to serve the highest quality to our guests. For example, our meat is sourced from accredited suppliers, predominantly based in the UK and we are proud to source all our fish from The British Isles. Our coffee is ‘CSC certified’ and Fairtrade. CSC guarantees that purchases are made from only certified plantations checked by independent auditors to ensure the conditions for both the growers and their coffee is high.

Our Restaurant offers a separate Vegan menu that is available on request.

Rooms
The Ritz offers an environmental opt-in option for the servicing of our guests’ rooms. ‘Just a Tidy’ gives the guest the option to not change towels or sheets daily, thus saving energy and reducing water consumption in the laundry process.

Transfers
The Ritz encourages the use of electric and hybrid vehicles for all hotel transfers. We also have electric car charging facilities available for our guests. Further information is available from our concierge team.

Equipment
Disused or dilapidated equipment that is capable of being broken down into reusable components is disposed of by a registered waste contractor under The Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive (WEEE) regulations.

CleanConscience – Charity
The Ritz supports a charity called CleanConscience, which recycles toiletries and gifts them to charities in the UK and aid organisations abroad.

We donate partly used soap and toiletries to charity. With the assistance of predominantly disabled volunteers, CleanConscience creates fresh bars of soap, which are then gifted to humanitarian aid organisations.

Part-used bottled toiletries are decanted and re-bottled for charities that help at-risk people in the UK and the plastic bottles are recycled.

Considerate Hoteliers
For many years The Ritz has been a member of Considerate Hoteliers, a community that is recognised for its commitment to responsible business practices in hospitality. Considerate Hoteliers regularly support The Ritz with the design of our Corporate Social Responsibility calendars.

Insulation
All of the hotel windows are double-glazed, and the entire building is thermally tested every year to monitor for any energy losses.

Gas
All gas appliances in the hotel kitchen have been replaced with an all-electric system. We use gas for heating and hot water, which our building energy management system monitors.

Electricity
All electricity that is procured is ‘Green’ energy.
We keep lighting in all public areas to a minimum overnight except for emergency lighting. We have replaced over 5,500 lamps in all guest bedrooms and corridors with LED energy-saving bulbs, which have reduced energy output from 40w to 4w.

Water
To reduce the amount of water used, we have installed slow-flow showerheads, pressure-reducing systems, smaller cistern capacities, flush volume measurement and sensors for urinals.

All of our recently refurbished rooms are now fitted with water pressure reducers to limit wasted water.

Our water quality is regularly checked to ensure it conforms to the latest legislation.

Buildings
Our teams carry out regular maintenance checks on all the hotel buildings.

Waste Disposal
All hotel waste is disposed of in accordance with the relevant legislation:

• The Environmental Protection Act 1990
• The Controlled Waste Regulations 1991
• The Special Waste Regulations 1996 (as amended)

Recycling
We recycle paper, cardboard, glass, and food waste. We work closely with Westminster City Council and Veolia, which is a company that specialises in environmental solutions to find new ways to recycle waste. We are now proudly ‘zero waste to landfill’.

Pollution Control

Air
Vehicles are not permitted to leave their engines running while delivering to the premises. Our consolidation centre allows us to limit the number of deliveries of non-perishable goods to the hotel, which are all transported to the site via electric vehicle.

Drainage
Grease traps are used throughout the kitchen and a planned maintenance programme is in place to maintain all the hotel drains on a regular basis.

Green Achievements
The Ritz fully understands its responsibility to minimise its impact on the environment and is committed to this at all levels of the business.

• Reduced carbon footprint by 1,000 tonnes since 2017.
• 96% of all lights are LED.
• Reduced electricity, gas and water consumption and costs by 10% since 2017.
• Increased recycling from 44% to 54% since 2022.
• Donate over two tonnes of soap to CleanConscience every year.
• Reduced waste by 365,000 paper cups per year, not going to landfill.  We introduced reusable thermos mugs in the staff canteen and stopped the use of paper cups.
• Annually participate in ‘Earth Hour’ and several corporate social responsibility events.
• All new starter packs are now paperless.
• All printers have been set to ‘Double-sided’ black and white printing as the default.

Ritz Bees
Bees play a vital role in our ecosystem, pollinating flowering plants, trees, and crops but they are becoming an endangered species. Parasites and disease, climate change, and air pollution all impact bee health, especially pesticides.

Bees pollinate approximately 80% of our flowering crops, which constitute one-third of everything we eat. Losing them could affect our only dietary staples such as apples, broccoli, strawberries, nuts, asparagus, blueberries, and cucumbers. Bees are of inestimable value as managers of cross-pollination and many plants are entirely dependent on particular kinds of bees for their reproduction.

As part of our green initiative of protecting our environment, The Ritz London has three beehives. There are 20,000 Buckfast bees in each beehive as well as a Queen bee. We have eight trained beekeepers from The Ritz team who have volunteered their services for free to ensure the bees are healthy and maintained.

Green Tourism
The Ritz is a member of Green Tourism and has achieved the gold award.

Green Tourism London attractions:

• The Museum of London – London Docklands
• ZSL London Zoo – Regents Park
• London Transport Museum – Covent Garden
• Dominion Theatre – Tottenham Court Road
• The Imperial War Museum – Lambeth
• WWT London Wetland Centre – Barnes
• Horniman Museum – Forest Hill
• Chelsea Physic Centre – Chelsea