The Taj Palace Hotel Dubai has earned a silver certificate from EarthCheck, a major environmental management programme, in recognition of its commitment to social and environmental sustainability.

To be awarded certification hotels have to demonstrate strict environmental sustainability with their performance monitored through regular ongoing benchmarking and audits conducted by an independent third party.

“Going through the process of attaining this certification has allowed us to identify areas where we could improve our performance in terms of the environmental impacts of our industry” said Andreas Mueller, general manager Taj Palace Hotel Dubai.

“But this is really just the start of the journey for us as we continue to build on what we have achieved over the last 12 months and to build a more responsible tourism model.”

The Taj Palace Hotel was benchmarked in 2010 on areas that included energy consumption, cleaning chemicals, water saving and waste recycling with a follow up assessment showing significant improvement in all areas. The hotel was also required to appoint an EarthCheck coordinator internally to oversee and guide all activities.

“We have assigned our director of engineering the task of driving this programme within the hotel and to work with the team to continue to monitor progress and implement changes if necessary” said Mueller.

As well as a commitment to the environment the Taj Palace will also be focusing on social sustainability by choosing to hire locally and by buying locally produced products and services.

EarthCheck is the world's largest environmental management program used by sustainable travel and tourism operators with more than 1000 clients in over 70 countries. – TradeArabia News Service