Luxury and sustainability are one and the same at Room Mate Bruno

Room Mate Bruno is a subsidiary of the Spanish ‘Room Mate’ chain. Their goal is to design hotels in such a way that you feel as if you're staying at a friend's house. Bruno is one of these unique friends with his own unique style. The design of each hotel is based on its location. Bruno, for example, refers to the building’s history as a former tea warehouse with subtle touches, such as the original texts on the beams in some rooms and the galaxies on the walls and floor coverings that refer to the navigation systems of the ships on which the tea was transported. 

Burg de Rave was introduced to Hotel Neutraal through the Rotterdamse Hotel Combinatie and the City of Rotterdam. “We have been focusing on sustainability for some time from within the chain, or rather our headquarters in Spain have. We have created our own label, called 'Room Mate Ecolution', but due to the pandemic it was put on the backburner. During the pandemic, we also had to reverse a number of measures we had taken to improve sustainability. So when I learned about Hotel Neutraal, we immediately said: let’s do it, so we can get the entire sustainability process back on track and breathe new life into it.” Burg is mainly referring to the use of plastic packaging, of course. “Suddenly all food had to be packaged again. We are now trying to get rid of all the plastic again.” Burg says the great thing about participating in Hotel Neutraal is that the hotel has a good baseline measurement to start from. “The outcome of the scan is also a wake-up call. Where do we currently stand? It’s good to have an overview of what we do, what we aren’t doing and where we can make progress in the long term.”

In addition, Hotel Neutraal introduced some hotels to Orbisk's food monitor. This smart monitor helps restaurant and hotel kitchens to get a grip on their food waste by measuring and recognizing what kind of food they are binning, how much and at what time of the day. This is done using image recognition and a scale. The ‘Orbi’ was installed in the Room Mate Bruno kitchen four weeks ago. “The monitor also fosters more awareness. Nobody cooks food and then throws it away. So we are already trying to take this into account.” The Orbi is still working on the baseline measurement, after which they will actively work on reducing food waste where possible. 

Prior to Hotel Neutraal, Bruno was already working on implementing various sustainable measures, such as employee uniforms and dispensers. “The uniforms of our front-office employees, for example, are made entirely from recycled plastic, from the shoes to the blazer, in collaboration with Spanish brand Ecoalf. We also had a lot of guest supplies in the rooms. For a long time, we were reticent about changing this because of the perception, but a few years ago we decided to switch to larger dispensers. All rooms now have dispensers for shampoo, soap and body lotion by Room Mate ecolution.”

One of the sustainable themes of Hotel Neutraal is social entrepreneurship. This includes making a positive contribution to (local) society. Room Mate Bruno contributes to this by offering rooms to people who are homeless for financial reasons, through the GiveMe5 project. Three to five rooms in the hotel are made available to these people for a period of 3 to 6 months. “We are not in charge of the assistance, other people do this within the project’s framework. Our aim is to offer support and a step up to their own housing. This is part of our corporate social entrepreneurship, it’s part of who we are and what we stand for.

“While we have lofty ambitions, we decided to start out with small interventions.” And that is exactly what they are currently doing. “We want to purchase solar panels, but I don’t think this is possible in the very short term.” Burg’s main priority is to ban all plastic from the hotel, something that was highlighted in the baseline measurement. During the pandemic, they had to roll back a number of measures, but this is now at the top of Burg’s list of changes that he wants to implement. “I think we first have to make a huge step in the operational narrative. We need to realize that the choices we make do not always influence quality or the old perception of a 4 star plus experience. Like when we made the decision to switch to dispensers. Initially, we worried that this might detract from the four-star experience, but to be fair, these kinds of measures are eminently suited to Room Mate. Precisely because we want to go against the grain, be different. So I think there’s a huge opportunity for us to make the hotel more sustainable.” 

Other points for improvement that were identified during the baseline measurement and that Room Mate Bruno can tackle as part of their transition to a circular future include offering tap water instead of spring water, reusable coffee cups; and separate collection of different waste streams in the hotel rooms. Lots of small steps which, when combined, can result in major changes. 

For more information about the program Hotel Neutraal click here.