Another Medal for Marriott Hotel

By - Avinash Yadav, Jeyaraj Kalirajan, T M Shilpa, and Anurag Bajpai

“Green building is not about the buildings - it is about people.’’_ Sandy Wiggins

Nepal with rich ancient cultures set against the most dramatic scenery in the world is a land of discovery. The traditions and famous hospitality of its many different groups are indeed a major part of what makes Nepal so special. To provide high quality services to guests, hotels consume large amounts of energy and fossil fuels. Due to high growth potential for hotel construction, the country's energy consumption will continue to rise with the growth of the tourism industry and economic development.

As a result, hospitality sectors are required to use energy management to increase the bottom line and lower operating costs. With Marriott's LEED Volume program to design and build hotels, they were able to improve their performance. As of now, Marriott has 13 platinum, 34 gold, and many more certified hotels all over the world.

Among their most recent achievements is in Kathmandu-Nepal, where they achieved a gold rating, with timely and coordinated guidance from Architecture Firm- M/s Anil Sharma Associates, from MEP firm- M/s Kunal Chaudhary & Associates, LEED consulting firm- M/s GreenTree Global, and other stakeholders including PMC firm.

GreenTree Global celebrated its 13^th anniversary, and in this journey, it has encouraged several significant projects in and outside India to adopt sustainable practices.

A study by BEE and USAID shows climatic influence on the way we utilize resources in the hospitality industry. The building in the Hot & Dry and Composite climatic zones emits a greater amount of CO2 emissions due to high requirement of HVAC systems to provide thermal comfort.

LEED is a rating system which leverages an integrative process to help the project teams to better understand the inter-connectivity that exists throughout the building systems and the phases of building design and construction.

Green Building and Environmental measures for Marriott hotel are…

SUSTAINABLE SITES

In order to consider any site as a sustainable under the LEED rating , the site have to ensure certain parameters fulfilled such as

• Control of erosion and sedimentation is achieved through proper site barricading, material storage, designed landscaping, paved areas, and challans for the receipt of top soil for the project site.

• Marriott selected a site that would be in the center of the city with existing infrastructure, protect Greenfields, and preserve habitats by selecting a site that had schools, public libraries, restaurants, parks, hospitals, and schools within 800 meters.

• To encourage the use of EVs by employees, the team installed EV charging stations in their basement, covering 5% of the total parking capacity on the property.

• By implementing the storm water management plan, the team was able to reduce run-off by 25% and capture and treat 90% of the average annual rainfall.

• All the parking areas are located in the basement, and the exposed roof is covered with china mosaic tiles, which reflect most of the direct solar heat to reduce the impact of Heat Island Effect.

WATER EFFICIENCY

• Besides reducing potable water usage by 54.29 percent, 100% of wastewater is recycled for landscaping along with using high-efficiency flush and faucet fixtures.

ENERGY & ATMOSPHERE

• In addition to optimizing energy performance by 17.9%, the Hotel Marriott has also avoided the use of CFC-based refrigerants in HVAC&R systems, reducing stratospheric ozone depletion.

MATERIALS & RESOURCES

• The Marriott Team focused on reducing the amount of waste and maximizing the use of recycled content so that resources can be conserved. The hotel diverted 96.33% of waste from landfill and used 21.09% recycled content materials in the building.

• To increase demand for locally extracted and manufactured building materials and products, 66.03 % of the materials in the hotel were obtained locally.

INDOOR AIR QUALITY

• A very significant factor in the on-going pandemic is optimizing indoor air quality. As a result of those efforts, actions such as –

i. Signages are used that stated 'No Smoking’,

ii. Low-emitting VOC paints, wooden materials and flooring systems were used, and

iii. Extra care was taken to reduce the amount of air pollution by using water to suppress flying particles, during construction.

INNOVATION IN DESIGN

• The project adopted strategies that have been considered innovative such as

i. The use of green housekeeping chemicals and

ii. Integrated pest control within and around the hotel.

Salutations

As per IBEF, the increase in the hotel market will be US$52 billion by FY27, compared to US$32 billion pre-pandemic FY20. Such a significant increase allows for more infrastructure development. Thus, it is very important to make each hospitality infrastructure energy efficient to aspire for a Net Zero built environment and for a environment friendly region.