Share & Voice: Personal Experience at Scandic Hotels

For this share and voice I wanted to talk about a recent experience I had while I was in Sweden. Since I have enrolled in this class I have started to take more notice about environmental issues, concerns, and what others are doing to help our environment. Staying in European hotels can sometimes be an adventure and with this stay I learned about different ways that Scandic Hotels are trying to be environmentally friendly.

The first thing I notice when I walk into the hotel room is the size difference compared to the typical American hotel room. The beds are is if they are one, that's how close they are. Of course we try and separate them as much as we can because that is the way we are use to sleeping. The reason I bring this up is because I began to think if our hotel rooms here in North America are really much bigger then we need. Do we really need our hotel rooms to be that big? The rooms that I have stayed in while in Europe are about half the size of those I have stayed in anywhere else in the world. Although the rooms are smaller, they don't try and cram more rooms into one hotel. They are usually 4 floors with about 30 rooms on a floor. What does this have to do with the environment? I began to think that when the rooms are smaller the amount of heat that is needed to warm the room is much less then if the room was bigger. Perhaps this is there way of trying to save on heat. Although I could not find this to be a fact on Scandic Hotels website, I think there is an environmental reason behind it.

Another thing that I noticed when I walked in the room is that you must put your key card in a slot (just to the side of the door) in order to turn on the lights! This is such a great idea. Many times when we leave our hotel rooms we leave the lights on because we won't see the electric bill right? Having to put your key card in this slot means that when you leave your room, you will take your key with you and automatically all lights and power sources will be turned off. This also includes any appliance that you may have plugged in to charge. You won't forget your key or else you won't be getting back into your room. Of course you can get a new key at the front desk but I can bet this won't be a habit throughout your trip! I really enjoyed this concept and think this is something North American hotels should start doing.

Now that I am on the topic of room keys, I read the back of mine and read something that I thought was great. The key cards are made out of sustainable wood, which is a cost-effective and reliable green alternative to plastic. I decided to research this a bit more and found out more about this product. I visited Sustainable Cards, which makes the room keys that Scandic Hotels use. Manufacturing wooden cards use about 1/3 of the electricity that it takes to make plastic cards. This was such a great website and I would recommend visiting this website to learn more about why using these key cards are better for our environment.

I was truly amazed and excited about the way Scandic Hotels is trying to be environmentally friendly. Here is a list of environmentally friendly things they do:

• Stopped using all single-use disposable packages
• Soap dispensers in the rooms and public toilets
• Use Swan eco-labelled serviettes 
• Have an environmentally aware towel and bedding policy
• Always use low-energy bulbs where possible
• Control the water flow in the toilets, showers, and taps
• Choose energy from renewable sources
• Use the room key to control lighting
• Breakfast buffet offeres several ecological choices
• Do not serve food containing genetically modified organisms (GMO)
• Choose environmentally aware suppliers

You can find more information about their environmentally friendly choices by clicking this link: Scandic Hotels. This class has truly been life changing. A year ago, I would have never noticed the environmentally friendly things that the hotel I was staying at was doing. Now, I am more conscious and more aware about my environment.