Sustainability at the Hotel Seehof Berlin

As a hotel, we have been intensively concerned with the issue of sustainability for a long time. We focus primarily on how we can do something good for the environment and at the same time optimize our processes. For us, not only the satisfaction of our employees and guests and the profitability of the hotel are of great importance, but also our efforts to make the entire hotel more sustainable step by step. Our goal is therefore to act sustainably without causing more effort for our employees or without our guests missing out on anything. The question therefore arises as to what we have achieved and implemented so far in terms of sustainability.

Hotel rooms

We have made many small changes in our hotel rooms to make our guests more aware of sustainability. Through our cooperation with “Deutschland summt!”, we have been given the opportunity to display brochures in the rooms for our hotel guests, which provide information about bee-friendly gardening, insect protection and sustainability. Our honey candies on the pillow are very delicious and are praised by guests. We have also installed water-saving shower heads in all rooms, which save water and energy. The cosmetics for our guests (shower gel, shampoo, etc.) are certified with an ECO label and carefully selected by us. We rely on resource-saving reusable products instead of individually packaged guest supplies. Guests who stay with us longer receive a linen change on the third day after arrival and we encourage them to reuse towels. In order to save further resources, only some of our hotel rooms have air conditioning in the room and guests are also encouraged to turn it off if they open the window. Our guest folder, which contains all important information about the hotel, is digitized and therefore available to guests in a resource-saving manner. Through various measures, we would like to encourage our guests to save energy and resources and to make their personal contribution to sustainability in our hotel.

Restaurant and kitchen

We have also already implemented some measures in the hotel’s own restaurant “au Lac” that ensure more sustainability. We continually try to avoid food waste and reduce the resulting waste. Through effective and careful waste separation, food waste can be composted and packaging recycled, saving resources. With the help of purchasing consolidation and the careful selection of our suppliers, we are able to shorten delivery routes, coordinate deliveries better and avoid repackaging in order to further reduce our waste. In the “au Lac” restaurant we have significantly increased the proportion of organic and fair trade products. We were also able to significantly increase the proportion of regional drinks and components in dishes in the spirit of sustainability. This means that guests can enjoy an extensive selection of regional dishes and drinks in our restaurant. We also offer our guests a 100% packaging-free breakfast with numerous organic products. In the spirit of sustainability, we actively participate in the “Suppe mit Sinn” campaign, which was launched by Berliner Tafel e.V. Hotel and restaurant guests have the opportunity to do something good during their visit, as one euro for every soup sold is donated to Berliner Tafel e.V. They use the income to support needy and homeless people in Berlin.

Behind the scenes

In the non-public areas, we have introduced a detailed waste separation system, which encourages all employees to separate waste correctly in order to recycle recyclables as best as possible. Thanks to our combined heat and power plant, we have been able to generate part of our own electricity and use the waste heat through heat feedback for over a decade. Apart from that, we use 100% natural electricity. When purchasing new devices, we also pay attention to the best possible energy efficiency class. We also continually try to reduce paper consumption in all areas of the hotel and save paper wherever possible. Thanks to digitalization, we have already managed to convert some areas, such as our accounting, to largely paperless work.

Since we have been dealing more intensively with the topic of sustainability, we have taken many steps and made a lot of changes in the hotel. We have already been able to optimize many of our internal processes in terms of sustainability, so that certain areas of the hotel operations are already paper-free and energy-saving measures are being implemented successfully. But even though we have already implemented and achieved a lot, sustainability is a continuous process for us. We are therefore planning further measures in the future to further improve sustainability in our hotel.