Conscious

Always caring about the impact of our decisions

Every organisation, in fact, every human being, has an impact on the world. For Travelodge, being conscious means being aware of the impact we make and increasing the positive. Our long-term goal is to become a net-zero business by 2050, and throughout 2024 we’ll set out to deliver this plan.

Energy Management & Carbon Emissions

By the end of 2024, we aim to reduce energy use by a further 2%.

Building New Hotels & Refurbishing Our Existing Hotels

Growth through our new hotels is key to Travelodge and in 2022 we opened 5 new hotels and plan to open a further 8 hotels this year.

Water, Waste Management & Recycling

As a business we have a responsibility to recycle and use water wisely. We have set targets in place to reduce our water consumption and improve our recycling.

Responsible Sourcing & Supply Chain Management

We are constantly working with suppliers on responsible sourcing.

At Travelodge, we recognise the part we play in reducing carbon emissions and managing energy consumption. In our first report in 2022, we set an objective to confirm our plans for our hotels to operate on a net zero basis by 2050.

Our hotels mainly use electricity for lighting, heating and cooling. During 2023 we focused on our objective to reduce carbon emissions and achieved this through a reduction of energy consumption by using technology such as:

Efficient LED lighting in both common areas and guestrooms
Smart Heating and Cooling controls
Solar panels
Replacing old, inefficient, electrically powered boilers for hot water, with new technology such as air-to-water heat pumps

Case Study: ASHP Trials

Towards the end of 2023, we undertook a project at two existing hotels with old electric immersion water heating technology to convert them to Air to Water Heat Pump hot water generation. This technology is much more efficient than electric immersion or gas alternatives. We will use these trial sites to validate the ability of this technology to meet our hot water demands and validate our intention to update our new build specification to this technology.

The complexities encountered during the trial will also inform our future plans for further conversions across our estate. So far both locations have reported satisfactory hot water provision, with both heat pumps operating continuously throughout January 2024. We would expect this to continue even during sub-zero temperatures as low as -8°C.

Case Study: Electric Vehicle Charging

In addition to our route to reduce our direct energy consumption, we also want to ensure we can support our customers to arrive at our hotels more sustainably, without the need to do this using a fossil fuel vehicle.

During 2023 we undertook an assessment of the wider market of EV charging services and then a tender for those services. Being clear about the outputs we require has been important in this process, such as the length of time our customers will be able to charge over, and the ways we charge for this service and accept payment.

Building New Hotels & Refurbishing Our Existing Hotels

Expansion is key for Travelodge and in 2023 we opened 4 new hotels with 6 more planned in 2024.

During 2022 we reviewed our new hotel construction specification and identified areas of change to ensure future hotel deals that are signed will always achieve A-rated EPC and a BREEAM performance level of at least Very Good.

Changes include:

Extending the use of efficient lighting
Smart heating and cooling control
Requirements for material sourcing
Undertaking site preparation and ecology planning
Enhanced landscaping and water attenuation
Completion of life cycle costing

Travelodge already develops new hotels with sustainability in mind, featuring:

Low energy lighting and motion sensing controls
Aerated showers and taps
Full insulation
Windows and external fixtures fitted accurately for minimum energy leakage
Smart meters installed
Variable Refrigerant Flow (VRF) heating and cooling system
Dual flush toilets

Our hotel refurbishment plan is ongoing and we’re conscious we’re conscious to use products that have sustainable credentials, using as little CO2 as possible delivering little waste for landfill. We also want to make sure that we reuse or recycle many of the things we replace in this process.

Our partner contractors made big strides in reducing waste to landfill, across 2022 and 2023, our main contractors diverted 97% waste from landfill with 87% being recycled and the balance incinerated, with 37% of projects completed without sending any waste to landfill. In 2024 we will continue working with our partners to make further reductions in waste to landfill and further improve the reuse or recycling of items we replace during a refurbishment.

Case Study: 2024 Refit Programme

The refurbishment programme involves the replacement of a high volume of items such as chairs, where the old items being removed can potentially be utilised in other sites.

All bedroom and Bar Café chairs are subject to a condition-based check post removal from site to assess whether they are fit to be repurposed back into another hotel as opposed to disposal where suitable volume at a refit site makes this practical.

Old mattresses are 100% diverted from landfill and are instead processed so that 50% of the material is recycled and 50% of the material is used to generate energy.

We will explore options to significantly increase the proportion of material being recycled during 2024.

Case Study: New Hotel Build

Within our current build programme, two hotels, London Beckenham and London Chiswick, will rely solely on Air to Water Heat Pumps to provide hot water, eliminating the need to provide gas connections to the buildings.

Water, Waste Management & Recycling

With over 580 hotels and more than 40,000 rooms, we have big plans for water conservation, reducing waste and improving our recycling credentials.

Water is a vital resource, however, around 40% of the world’s population is affected by water scarcity. The challenge isn’t just global. The supply of water in the UK is becoming more unpredictable and issues around taking water from surface sources alongside water infrastructure mean that within the next 20 years, demand for water in parts of southern England will probably outstrip supply.

Travelodge mainly uses water in our bedrooms, through our showers, toilets and sinks, and also within our Bar Cafés and for cleaning in our hotels. So ensuring we are using it wisely is the right thing to do. Installing aerated shower heads and taps helps reduce water consumption by up to 50%.

During 2023 our plumbing team replaced inefficient toilet cisterns in 11 hotels covering over 1,000 rooms. These hotels are now averaging water usage of 111 litres per customer reduced from 188 litres pre-fix. A trial of low-flow shower heads has been completed across 12 hotels with trial hotels achieving reduced consumption by an average of 98 litres per customer down from 123 litres pre-trial.

Our waste comes not just from our business but also from our supply chain and guests. It can be anything from plastics, e-waste and leftover food – everything no longer needed has to go somewhere and in 2022 we identified opportunities to increase customer recycling.

This year we will be trialling increasing customer recycling across our hotels to understand and set realistic targets and to ensure waste management procedures are easy for our Colleagues and Customers.

Case Study: Food Recycling

In December 2023, after a successful trial in Scotland, we introduced food recycling in all our Bar Café hotels in England and Wales. All kitchen food waste is separated at source, collected by our waste provider and recycled sustainably. This change ensures we are compliant with the Scottish and incoming Welsh legislation, and well ahead of delivering any future legislation in England.

In its first month, we sustainably disposed of 36 tonnes of food waste. In parallel with the separation and sustainable disposal of food waste, we are identifying improvements to our operational processes that reduce the amount of food waste we are generating.

Responsible Sourcing & Supply Chain Management

We rely on our supply chain, so we are constantly working with suppliers on responsible sourcing.

From mattresses to energy to carpets to laundry services, companies within our supply chain are a key part of the Travelodge ecosystem. Responsible sourcing and supply chain management looks at how we select our suppliers in a fair and ethical way as well as their approach to sustainability practices.

In 2023 we targeted 50 business critical suppliers and conducted a sustainability assessment of their businesses using a questionnaire; developed jointly with with our external consultants and during 2024 we plan to expand our supplier discussions further.

By 2025 we aim to have:

Established supply chain KPIs and target improvement areas to report on
Included sustainability-themed questions into formal supplier tender processes
Established a sustainability governance model for Travelodge’s supply chain
Embedded carbon targets into an agreed level of our supply chain activities KPIs

Case Study: Lyreco

We have already seen one of our suppliers Lyreco move from next day delivery to having a three day window which has saved 11 Tonnes of CO₂, or 1,000 Deliveries, equivalent to 28,000 less miles driven, following this success we are working with Lyreco in extending this to weekly deliveries.