A research report submitted to the Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment, University of the Witwatersrand, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Building (Property Development and Management). / This study investigated the outlook business travellers to and within South Africa have towards green hotels. The purpose of this study was to determine the extent to which greenness affects consumers in South Africa. This was achieved by reviewing literature related to green hotels and consumers’ attitudes towards green products and its competitiveness in the market. A questionnaire was compiled based on existing literature. Data was collected by means of an online survey and the data was tested using the chi square frequency test. The findings indicated that respondents had a positive attitude towards greening hotels but the chi-test indicated that there was agreement on the positive relationship between greening hotels and perception. Guests believed that a standard should be set for green hotels as well as that if a conventional and green hotel served the same function, the green hotel would be the preferred choice. It is important for green hotels to incorporate a premium into the hotel bill. Future research should establish a model that the hotel can adopt to include a premium in the pricing of the hotel. The potential benefits of this study will be to improve the brand and corporate image of the hotel alongside contributing to a sustainable environment.

Buildings generate millions of tons of greenhouse gases, toxic air emissions, water pollutants and solid wastes that contribute to negative environmental impacts. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a methodology for assessing the environmental performance of products over their life time. However, many building products are discarded much before the end of their service life, especially as a result of refurbishment and renovation projects. The need for such projects is increasing because most buildings are not designed to accommodate changes in their functions and needs of their occupants. This is particular to commercial buildings, especially hospitality facilities, which are unique with regard to operational schemes and the type of services offered that are highly resource-intensive. In this investigation, statistical data related to refurbishment and renovation projects in Turkey were analysed to determine the percentage of refurbishment projects for hotels. Bills of quantities for refurbishment projects of three five-star hotels in Ankara were obtained and evaluated with regard to the volume and type of material discarded as a result of the renovation works. ATHENA, an LCA software, was used to evaluate these projects according to the six environmental impact indicators: primary energy consumption, solid waste, air pollution index, water pollution index, global warming potential and weighted resource use. A system was formulated for evaluating materials according to each indicator by calculating their &ldquo / eco-scores&rdquo / the total score is considered to be the yard-stick for comparing environmental appropriateness of these materials. Finally, recommendations on the choice of materials were made, with an aim to reducing material waste and harmful emissions.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-12-17T13:57:23Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 GlenioLFL.pdf: 3500534 bytes, checksum: d4ce541fabad7066b400594c3c70b44c (MD5) Previous issue date: 2007-02-01 / Coordena??o de Aperfei?oamento de Pessoal de N?vel Superior / This master thesis aims to assess the influence of the design decisions on the energy building performance of hotels. The research is based on the integration of field study and computer simulation. Firstly, a detailed field study is carried out to identify the characteristics of hotels in Natal, Rio Grande do Norte. The items assessed are occupancies, light and equipment densities, types of air conditioning, total and monthly energy consumption, among others. A second and more comprehensive field study is carried out to identify the range of occurrence of architectural variables, with a larger number of buildings. A base case is modelled in VisualDOE, based on the first field study. Then, a first set of simulations are run to explore the sensitivity of the variables on the energy consumption. The results analyses were the base of a second set of simulations, which combined the most influential variables. The results of 384 models were assessed, and the impacts of design decisions were quantified. The study discusses tendencies and recommendations, as well as the methods advantages and disadvantages / O objetivo deste trabalho foi identificar as decis?es arquitet?nicas mais importantes relacionadas com a redu??o do consumo energ?tico em hot?is. A partir de auditorias realizadas em 43 meios de hospedagem da cidade foi poss?vel conhecer mais suas formas de funcionamento, seus equipamentos, sistema de ilumina??o, tipos de condicionadores de ar, al?m de caracter?sticas construtivas. Os dados dessa pesquisa de campo foram organizados e os aspectos mais relevantes foram utilizadas na modelagem de um caso representativo. Com base nesse modelo inicial, simula??es computacionais foram realizadas com a finalidade de se verificar o impacto de diferentes alternativas de projeto no consumo de energia. Entre as vari?veis analisadas est?o a efici?ncia do sistema de resfriamento, a orienta??o, o sombreamento, o tamanho das aberturas, o tipo de vidro, al?m de caracter?sticas t?rmicas de parede e coberta. Os resultados demonstraram a import?ncia das rotinas de ocupa??o na defini??o das estrat?gias projetuais, as combina??es com melhor e pior desempenho em rela??o ao modelo inicial, identificaram os casos em que determinada vari?vel tem seu efeito minimizado/maximizado sobre o consumo, al?m de quantificar o impacto produzido na combina??o de uma, duas ou mais alternativas de projeto. As an?lises evidenciaram ainda a complexidade que a coleta de dados envolve, as peculiaridades do setor hoteleiro e a dificuldade de se estabelecer correla??es claras com o consumo, sobretudo pelas incertezas associadas ? imprevisibilidade de uso nos hot?is e aus?ncia de crit?rios/normas de classifica??o