Southern Sun workforce serious about being environmentally friendly

In less than a week, thousands of delegates will be arriving on the shores of South Africa for the COP17 meeting. Delegates from 193 countries, drawn largely from governments, business and academia, are expected in Durban for the conference.

Southern Sun Hotel Group, one of the preferred accommodation partners for this meeting, has embraced this opportunity to create awareness internally, and so doing, change the behaviour of their employees at work, home and in the surrounding communities.

The training division of Southern Sun called Southern Sun Learning & Development is dedicated to ensuring that every Southern Sun employee has access to education, training and development. In the past year 95% of permanent employees received training. Using this phenomenal vehicle, Southern Sun embarked on a programme to raise the environmentally friendly awareness levels amongst their employees.

The programme educates the hotel manager about the importance and actual day to day actions that can be implemented at work and in their communities. Once the managers are equipped, they train the employees at the relevant hotels. A self-learning module and e-learning course are made available to the managers.

Striving to be the leaders in environmental sustainability in tourism, Southern Sun Hotels consistently implement such innovative initiatives and management systems across their brands and properties. “Environmentally sustainable tourism is a central business focus for Southern Sun and as is our practice, we believe in providing the tools and knowledge to our people, to enable them to implement and create awareness in their careers and at home.

We are dedicated to serving our valued customers with a professional and caring attitude, simultaneously ensuring that we preserve our heritage for generations to come”, says Graham Wood, Managing Director, Southern Sun Hotels.

Some of the interesting environmental facts:

A running tap wastes 11.35 litres of water each minute

A dishwasher uses 41.63 litres of water per use

75% of all water in the household is used in the bathroom

Running your tap for 5 minutes uses enough energy to run a 60watt light bulb for 14 hours

A full bath uses 264 litres of water. A 5 minute shower uses 37-94 litres

Recycling 1 ton of paper saves 17 mature trees, 26 497 litres of water and 4000 kilowatt hours of electricity

Recycling one aluminium can saves enough energy to run a 100 watt light bulb for 20 hours, a computer for 3 hours and a TV for 2 hours

Enough plastic is produced in the USA each year to shrink-wrap half of South Africa

Enough plastic bottles are thrown away each year to circle the earth 4 times

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Environmental Training