New Trafalgar hotel goes carbon neutral

The hotel, which is located in Trafalgar Square and is due to open at the beginning of July, has 129 bedrooms and will employ 130 staff, and includes Rockwell, London’s first bourbon bar offering over 100 varieties of bourbon as well as an 80 seat restaurant and a private roof terrace with views across London’s skyline. An initial carbon dioxide emissions assessment has been carried out for the first year of the hotel’s operation, which will be reviewed by the Edinburgh Centre for Carbon Management once the hotel is fully operational.

The hotel will also be promoting the concept of carbon neutrality. All front of house staff have been briefed on the issues of carbon dioxide emissions and the need to reduce emissions at source through reduced energy use, as well as the values of generating new forest ecosystems of mixed indigenous trees for the benefit of nature and the public.

“We are introducing new ideas to a generation of environmentally aware customers, so we wanted to be focused on what we as a business could do to contribute to our shared environment,” said Andreas Jersabeck, General Manager of The Trafalgar. “The hotel will be donating £1 for every occupied room to facilitate planting schemes and to ensure our carbon emissions are neutralised.”

Future Forests, an organisation which plants mixed indigenous saplings in 50 forest areas around the country in order to accumulate carbon in their biomass whilst they grow, has announced that it does not support the use of mature forests as carbon sinks as a means by which to claim carbon offset, the effectiveness of which has been cast into doubt by recent research. Neither does the organisation support fast-growing monoculture forestry. The Trafalgar trees will be planted this coming season in woodlands around London and the Home Counties area.

“I applaud the management team at The Trafalgar for helping to promote the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions and using the opening of the new hotel to spread the message to reach a wider audience,” said Jonathan Shopley, CEO of Future Forests.

Other carbon neutral projects include a TV pop programme, a mortgage, a printing company, and a CHP plant.