Greening Hotels in Sri Lanka has taken on a different dimension that has generated approval from the European Union, which provided a grant of 2 million Euros in this regard.
Under the theme “Greening Sri Lanka Hotels” this grant would enable hotels to improve water, energy and waste as part of a worldwide initiative and running in Asian countries, Project Director/Consultant Srilal Miththapala said at a media briefing in Colombo this week.
He noted that this is part of a 4-year plan of which two years has already been completed.
Bids were called and based on the structure of the project that fell in line with the required guidelines of the European Union; Sri Lanka was selected as one of the beneficiaries.
In this respect, the country would be gaining from the assistance made towards using this monetary input to ensure Sri Lankan hotels would become increasingly eco friendly.
Mr. Miththapala said that the project was stringently monitored with officials visiting the country twice a year.
Similar projects financed by the European Union are currently underway in Thailand, India, China, Vietnam and Bangladesh.
He pointed out some officials would visit hotels even by themselves alone.
During a review session in Colombo where presentations on all projects in Asia were carried out Sri Lanka was selected as having the best project, Mr. Miththapala said.
Currently 177 hotels have signed up with the SWITCH Asia Greening Sri Lanka Hotels project out of the 270 registered hotels in the country and the approximately 6000 unclassified rooms.
In the future, an Energy Auditor and Energy Manager would be hired in a bid to ensure the hotels are maintaining the required standards.
The project director observed that most hotels were increasingly aware and interested in this eco-friendly programme.
The programme has sought out to work with old hotels but have engaged the new coming up in a bid to ensure they would start out in an eco friendly manner from the beginning, he explained.
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