Eco Commitment

Our promise at The Fern Hotels & Resorts is a premium standard of amenities and service
with a true passion for the environment. A living thing, the fern is a perennial plant, retaining
a rare consistency and many of it best characteristics over millions of years. It is an epitome
of pedigree flora and it aptly represents us.
In a world where guests require proactive, individualized service, The Fern delivers much
more. Luxury with elegance and personalized service, and all the contemporary facilities
packaged together with minimal impact on the environment.
COMMITMENT TO YOU
As hoteliers, creating the best experience for you is paramount. We have maintained this
commitment and we thank you for responding positively by actively taking part in our
initiatives. We have successfully demonstrated that environment initiatives do not need to
compromise your experience.
With the initial goal of acceptance achieved, we are focusing on the next level 'responsibility',
by initiating a more participative experience for you through new programmes.

Green Button

An innovation by The Fern, the Green Button is a guest interaction initiative unique to us. It
is widely acknowledged as the best marriage of reducing carbon emissions with guest support
and no decline in experience in anyway.
The Green Button is a special feature on the bedside control panel*. The single push of the
button gives you the ability to make an immediate and immense contribution to the
environment by reducing power consumption. A certificate is shared with you at checkout.
*In some hotels only

Green Team

This is a special group of people, all volunteers from the staff body. The Green Team is the
driving force of our environment initiatives at each property. The team initiates and monitors
all environment initiatives done in-house. The Green Team empowers the staff far beyond the
propertys set-up. Professional hierarchy is also set-aside in this unique team.
The success of the Green Team can be gauged from the guests and staff members who have
taken our green message in to their own lives and personal groups.

Advanced Locality Management

The Fern is aware of the impact a hotel or resort has on its environment and its people, both
internal staff and guests as well outside, on the community. Each The Fern property is an
active member in its locality. Community initiatives, often led by the Green Team, range from
working alongside local administrators and residents in planning infrastructure projects to
outreach projects in schools and cleanliness drives.
Working with the community allows the team to learn new skills while sharing its knowledge
in exchange. These participative initiatives always lead to better results for the community.

Green Time

Every so often, we invite guests, staff and local community members others to participate in
an extension of the Earth Hour. We meet in candlelight as the hotels electric lights are shut
off for a 15 min long session. The response has been fabulous and the programme continues
to evolve.
Led by the general manager, we share our green tips and initiatives and welcome your
experiences of green travel and practices. Listening to you is important to us and your
feedback often makes it in our operations.
Guest experience and participation is central to our message at The Fern.

Eco Features

Ayurvedic toiletries
Cloth bags are used in place of plastic shopping bags
Eco-friendly baskets are used for your laundry newspapers and laundry
Water-friendly tap and flushes that save 50% of water
Plastic hangers are replaced with pressed particleboard hangers
Pens and pencils made from virgin wood are replaced with those from recycled cardboard,
reprocessed plastic and scrap wood
All stationary is either handmade or made from recycled paper
Your complimentary in-room slippers are handcrafted with rubber sole or jute
No flowers are cut for decoration. Instead, potted plants are used to decorate the room and
keep it green
Rooms are provided with recycle bins for guests to deposit recyclable material

The Pledge

Each member of The Fern family, from the Chairman to the entire staff body, takes a pledge
to adhere to and further the commitment to the environment.
"Being a team member of an environment sensitive group, I pledge to protect and enhance
the environment including all its resources by encouraging and implementing the concepts of
reduce, reuse and recycle. I will manage my share of resources with maximum efficiency. I
pledge to form an educated opinion and to make responsible choices. I pledge to make a
difference."
Led by the Green Team, environment sensitization has become a significant part of the
training programme.

Green globes
Our environmental policy is based on the four globes derived from our planets most
venerable elements; water, air, land, people.

Water
Water is that rare resource which can be recycled indefinitely. Our water management
therefore embodies the 3 Rs. We first reduce as much as we can and then recycle it to make it
reusable, which further reduces our need to take new water from the local system.

Management
We reduce our water consumption by monitoring everything about its use. Sub-meters
installed in every area provide precise reports on how water is used. Treating it as an asset,
each department is responsible for its usage and rewarded for the savings made. Its
surprisingly simple. Well be happy to show you how it done. Please ask your hotels
manager for a tour.
Guest Programmes
You are invited to join us in reducing up to 16 litres of water a day when you stay with us by
choosing to reuse your linen and towels for the next day.
The Save My Planet card, when kept on the bed, lets the housekeeper know you too agree its
wasteful to change the bed linen daily. Thank you for doing this as it saves at least 16 litres of
water per bed.
The same for your bath towels. Well replace your bath towels only if kept in the laundry
basket o the floor. Keeping it on the rack lets us know its good enough to use again. Thank
you for doing this as it saves around 10 litres of water per room.
Eliminating Chemicals
Popular cleaning agents and additives to water have a long-term negative effect on the
environment. We have minimized their use and continue to invest in newer technology that
eliminates the harmful chemicals altogether. The cleaning chemicals used by our hotels are
the new generation, certified, eco-labelled products.
Aerator & Flow Restrictors
All taps contain special aerators, which increase the water force and reduce outflow, saving
water. Using these aerators saves up to 50% of water. Further still, the taps are placed at a 30o
angle, which reduces flow rate while the aerator is set to medium.
Dual Flush

The dual flush system in the guest bathroom saves up to 70% of water per use by giving you
the choice. The average hotel flush consumes 10 litres per use. Our upper flush uses 3litres
while the lower flush uses 7 litres.
Sewage Treatment Plant
We actively treat the waste water to reduce the tremendous burden a hotels sewage puts on
the local environment and system. Sewage or black water is treated and cleansed to improve
it to grey quality i.e. usable for gardening and outdoor cleaning. Bathroom water is termed as
white. Water suitable for drinking is called portable water.
Grey water is used for all outdoor areas except the water fountains as that will deteriorate the
quality of the granite.

Land
The group bears witness to what we have done long, long after its done. So, maintaining a
good equilibrium of we return to the land is important to us.

Waste Management
While waste management is last mile of a regular supply chain, for us it defines what we buy
and use so as to waste as little as possible. We have detailed waste management that includes;
The 3 Rs The basis of our waste management policy is the 3 simple Rs i.e. Reduce, Reuse,
Recycle. As an example of 'Reduce' we avoid the default use of plastic straws, paper napkins,
plastic cling wrap etc. These are available at our hotels, though like fruits, are provided only
on request.
4 BinsSegregation is essential to reusing is, so all garbage is segregated into 4 colour-coded
bins. Green Bin: For recyclable waste; Red Bin: For non-recyclable waste; White Bin: For
dry garbage, and the Black Bin: For wet garbage. We even have two bins in every guest room
to segregate at source.
Vermicomposting Composting pits are maintained at the hotel that decompose all wet waste
in to manure. This is then used invarious gardens both in and outside the hotel. Each year, we
decompose over 200 tons of waste.
These are just a few of our waste management processes. Today we have been able to keep
up to 99.7% of our waste out of landfills in some hotels; we aim for a 100% across all our
hotels. And whats, more this achievement is externally certified.

Air
We use extensive energy management to reduce the burden we place on the atmosphere.
Hotels have historically been one of the highest consumers of energy. With extensive public
spaces and 24x7 temperature control, the energy consumed is on an industrial scale. We at
The Fern have created a few basis steps to we both guide and lead the industry in reducing
energy consumption. This along with our other measures has won us over 25 awards in the
short span of 4 years.
Architecture
We follow a scheme of Passive Solar Architecture, an approach where we use the architecture
of the building to protect against heat and allow for the natural light. For e.g. we use doubleglazed windows which keep the heat and exterior sound out of hotel. Similarly, investments
in insulated roofs keep the heat out and reduce the energy consumed for air-conditioning.
STL Tanks
Our air-conditioning systems are linked to STL tanks (Stored Thermal Latent) which store the
excess cooling generated. These then take over the cooling of the hotel during off-peak hours.
Its a productive way to utilise excess energy which would have unfortunately been wasted.
This is becoming an industry-standard.
Hot Water
In centrally cooled buildings, hot water is a by-product of the generators used to create the
cool air. Thankfully, hotels have a need for hot water. So through a novel process, the heat
generated by the air-conditioning is captured and used to heat all our hot water needs.