Sustainability

In collaboration with the town of Banff and Muuse Cups, our hotel is now part of the Banff Borrows Reusable Cup Program. With much of Banff’s waste attributed to single-use cups, we have decided to join the fight in reducing waste in our beautiful National Park.

The Banff Borrows Reusable Cup Program allows patrons to borrow a high-quality reusable cup free of charge from STOCK Food & Drink, located in our lobby. Participants will then have up to 30 days to return it to any partnering location. It’s as simple as scanning a QR code to register for the program, and you will join the effort to eliminate single-use waste while enjoying a delicious beverage from STOCK Food & Drink.

The sustainability theme runs deep in Fairmont Banff Springs’ culinary tradition. Executive Chef Atticus Garant works diligently with local purveyors to bring in the highest quality ingredients and aim to have 75% of our products sourced from Alberta and other Canadian provinces.

Pastries, cured meats, and preserves are made onsite, with an in-house butcher shop providing fine cut, locally-sourced meat for the entire hotel. To further reduce our carbon footprint, we grow microgreens in our urban cultivators at STOCK Food & Drink as well as house-grown herbs, greens and small vegetables in our greenhouse. The Castle is committed to purchasing local, organic, Fair Trade and sustainable food products wherever possible.

In partnership with Sun Country Highway Ltd., we have installed an electric vehicle charging station in the parkade. The hotel also has six Tesla charging stations.

Accor’s Net-Zero Carbon Calculator helps Meeting & Event clients to calculate their carbon footprint and offset emissions by purchasing carbon credits to balance the remaining emissions. The solution is provided in collaboration with myclimate, a Swiss non-profit organization and global leader in carbon accounting and climate protection.

To conserve energy and cut greenhouse gas emissions, Fairmont Banff Springs has introduced LED light bulbs throughout the hotel. Since 2015, electricity use has decreased by 8% thanks to the LED installations.

Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel is proud to have some the cleanest drinking water in the entire world. The hotel’s water is sourced from a glacier-fed ground well in the national park, treated to the highest standards by the Town of Banff, and pumped to the property for guests and colleagues to enjoy. The hotel encourages guests to fill their reusable bottles with this pristine water at bottle refill stations or even straight from the tap in their room.

Fairmont Banff Springs has committed to preserving the precious local glacier water of Banff National Park by taking many bold steps to reduce water consumption across the property. In addition to installing certified low-flow plumbing fixtures in all guest rooms, using a liquid pool cover to reduce evaporation, and rolling out water awareness information to all staff, the largest water reductions have been seen on the iconic Fairmont Banff Springs Golf Course.

The golf course grounds team has re-naturalized 510,000 sq. ft. of areas near tee-off and fairways of all 27 holes by planting native montane grasses. In addition to immersing golfers in a more natural mountain landscape, the native vegetation does not require intense water & grooming, which allowed the hotel to decommission 115 sprinkler heads and save an astonishing 3.5 million gallons of water annually. The grounds team also performs frequent irrigation effectiveness audits to adjust distribution and identify equipment in need of repair.

Leftover soap & hygiene products that would otherwise be discarded from guest rooms are donated to Clean the World. A global organization that distributes recycled soaps and hygiene products to vulnerable communities in over 120 countries.

Plastic is a major issue in the hospitality industry. Accor acknowledged this issue and all properties have eliminated all non-essential single-use plastic items from the guest experience. Now, any guest staying at an Accor property can be at ease knowing that their stay does not generate unnecessary plastic waste. All hotels are continuing to phase out single-use plastic items from internal operations until all properties are plastic-free by 2030.
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Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel performs an annual cleanup of the property and surrounding community to ensure it is sparkling like mother nature intended.

All new colleagues of Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel learn about current sustainability initiatives, the importance of environmental stewardship within the national parks, and how to contribute to their hotel’s sustainability goals.

Additionally, Fairmont Banff Springs has a dedicated Sustainability Committee chaired by a sustainability champion who leads the implementation of the various initiatives across the property. The sustainability committees identify areas of improvement, discuss strategies to solve issues, and engages the hotel in sustainability through innovative events and programming.

Fairmont Banff Springs has received and continues to successfully renew a 5 Green Key Rating from Green Key Global, a leading international environmental certification body designed specifically for the hotel and meetings industries. To learn more about the program, please visit their website.