What’s so green about the Apex London Wall Hotel?

21st December 2009, 3:41pm

Apex Hotels have completed an awful lot of work to improve its environmental practices and as a result have won numerous awards.

Apex Hotels are leaders within the industry on their environmental initiatives and as a result have won numerous environmental awards. It has been reported that their sister Hotel in London produces less carbon emissions than a comparative hotel of its size and many of these environmental initiatives were developed further for implementation into the new Apex London Wall Hotel in London.

A number of actions were carried out at the design stage of this hotel to reduce its carbon emissions:

The building has been fully refurbished into an 89 bed four-star luxury hotel with restaurant, bar, lounge and gym facilities.

It is an existing building structure thus conserving resources and energy and reducing drastically the quantity of demolition waste to landfill.

It is located in the heart of London City on a brown field site with exceptionally good access to public transport links reducing the need for cars.

A Guest & Staff Travel Plan was commissioned to conclude that the development would have no impact on existing traffic and to encourage the use of sustainable transport to and from the hotel.

The building was thermally modelled using an environmental toolkit software to explore the optimum upgrade of building fabric and services.

An air tightness test was commissioned to double check the buildings performance.

The failing single glazed steel cladding system was removed and replaced with efficient double-glazed windows and Portland stone cladding. This results in a 90% smaller carbon footprint than facing bricks and 75% smaller than prefabricated concrete. The stone panels were cut and formed at an English quarry with no additional stop offs or processes.

Two additional bedroom storeys have been added to the top of the building to increase the useable floor area without encroaching on the building footprint. These new floors are wrapped in full height, glass panels with patterned enamel coatings to reduce unwanted solar gains. Highly insulated panels behind the glass reduce heat loss and provide privacy.

The original white glazed brick lightwell has been sympathetically restored to bounce natural daylight into the courtyard rooms.

New energy efficient boilers and heating system have been installed linked to a Building Management System (BMS) which enables Apex Hotels to have full control of energy consumption and by monitoring daily can implement measures to further reduce the carbon emissions.

Market leading heat pump technology has been installed incorporating heat recovery and compensating room set point control with outside temperature.

Card readers have been fitted in all bedrooms to switch off lights, electrical appliances, heating and air coolers when the room is not in use.

Low energy kettles are provided in bedrooms to reduce energy consumption.

Low energy LED lamps have been fitted throughout the property and motion detectors fitted to low traffic areas to switch lights off.

Energy efficient lifts have been installed.

A range of water saving devices have been installed in the property these being flow regulators to taps and showers, dual flush toilets, walk in showers separate to the bath to encourage shower use.

A new 'green' roof system has been installed, regulating storm water outflow and enhancing the biodiversity of the site and the appearance of the development from the surrounding taller buildings.

Public areas on the ground floor are naturally lit and passively ventilated.

Eco friendly chemicals are used throughout the hotel and a re-use towel policy is in place.

Laundering of bed linens and towels are carried out using eco friendly products and techniques.

Room toiletries are locally produced using natural ingredients, not tested on animals and are bio-degradable.

Newspapers are supplied upon guest request and a few for public areas rather than to every room.

The hotel serves fair trade tea and coffee, are members of the AA food scheme and use local produce for beverages, fish, meat, fruit, vegetables and dairy.

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