Environment & Sustainability

Working with sustainability and the environment is important to us at KUST Hotel & Spa, and in the transition to a sustainable society, we as a company have a very important role to play.

 

At KUST Hotel & Spa, we actively work to maximize positive effects and minimize our climate footprint. Both in small and large ways. We constantly work to improve our own sustainability efforts and also have high expectations of our suppliers.

Our climate commitment is an important part of our operations, where we know that even small changes can have a big impact.

A large part of our sustainability work is closely tied to consumption and resources. For example, food and drink, energy, water, and chemicals. Streamlining and reducing resource usage provides both better environmental performance and lower costs.

The areas we have reviewed in our sustainability work can be categorized as follows:

• Optimized heating / cooling
• Green electricity
• Reduced energy consumption
• Reduced water consumption
• Building materials
• Sustainable furnishings
• Sustainable products
• Reduced use of consumables
• Reduced food waste
• Locally produced food and vegetarian options
• Handling of hazardous waste and recycling

When we built the hotel, we chose to drill a total of 53 boreholes for geothermal heating. Each borehole is 300 meters deep and has a total volume of almost 1.6 miles.

The boreholes provide both KUST Hotel & spa and Restaurant Tage with so-called geoenergy, which covers all our needs for heating in winter and free cooling in summer.

A sustainable choice that makes a big difference in reducing our climate footprint.

Green electricity

In 2021, our parent group invested in two wind turbines. The wind turbines provide the group with approximately 1.3 million kWh of green electricity each year. This is enough to more than supply both KUST Hotel & Spa and Restaurant Tage with energy. This investment, together with the boreholes, makes the hotel self-sufficient in green energy.

Reduced energy consumption

• All lighting in public areas and staff areas is controlled by motion sensors.
• All lighting in hotel rooms is turned off when the guest leaves the room and takes with their key card.
• All lighting in the hotel, spa, and restaurant is, of course, energy-efficient LED or low-energy fixtures.
• All rooms are equipped with modern presence-controlled ventilation
• Reduced water consumption
• We give all our guests the option to choose so-called Stay Cleaning, which means we do not wash bed linens and towels every day unless the guest wishes it. In this way, we reduce the consumption of water, electricity, and chemicals.
• All wash basin faucets in the entire hotel are controlled by motion sensors to minimize water usage.
• All toilets have low-flush mechanisms.

Building materials

The concrete in the facade at KUST contains Titanium dioxide, which eats pollution and thus contributes to the improvement of outdoor air and reduces the levels of nitrogen oxides from our surrounding street traffic.

Our concrete facade (Tiomix) “eats” nitrogen oxides in the surrounding air and acts as an air purifier; one could say that the concrete facade corresponds to the carbon dioxide uptake of a couple of thousand trees in the central city.

Recycled material

The carpets in the hotel are made from discarded fishing nets collected from the sea and have been given new life through reuse.

Sustainable furnishings

Our goal is for the furniture in the hotel to last a long time. Therefore, we choose quality that lasts over time to avoid “wear and tear.” As much as possible, furniture that is replaced is reused.

During the construction of the hotel, all fixed furnishings were built on-site by a local carpentry shop.

Consumables

We avoid the use of disposable items and also print our own materials where possible, which reduces overuse of printed materials. We have also increased our digital communication to reduce paper mailings to our customers.

Plastic products

We try to reduce the use of disposable plastic items. For example, we have replaced plastic straws with paper straws and significantly reduced the use of plastic packaging at the SPA.

Reduced food waste

We do not serve buffet food in the restaurant; instead, everything is served on plates to reduce food waste.
Breakfast and conference meals served on a buffet are replenished more often in smaller quantities to minimize the risk of having to discard food that has been left out.

Recycling

We are careful to recycle both at the hotel, restaurant, and spa.

Recycling is clearly organized and easily accessible for all staff to facilitate handling.

For example, we recycle all aluminum containers from the many tealights we use each year.