Binoy Sreedhar

OT: Mövenpick Hotel and Spa Bangalore is the first five-star hotel in the country to be Green Globe Certified. What’s a Green Globe?

Binoy Sreedhar: A Green Globe is the global certification for sustainable tourism. Members conserve energy and water resources, reduce their operational costs and carbon footprint, and positively contribute to local communities and their environment. There are a series of rigorous parameters and the emphasis is on sustainability. The management pays extra care to the fact that any act or any development of the property should be conducted in a sustainable fashion.

OT: Please illustrate the approach with examples.

Binoy Sreedhar: It’s actually all-encompassing. It starts from hiring and training the right people. In our search for unique luxury products, we frequently import and leave a long carbon footprint whereas buying local and biodegradable makes a huge difference when you look at a large hotel’s annual needs. We do that now for everything from groceries for the kitchen to toiletries for the guest rooms. We also have measures in place to use gas and fuel economically. Waste management is another highly neglected area, which can fetch fantastic results. It’s not easy to maintain these standards. It required training and persuasion to reduce waste in the kitchen. Banquets would routinely over-order and we couldn’t do anything but discard leftovers. But now we we have a streamlined system in place.

OT: How do you engage the community in all this?

Binoy Sreedhar: To use a simple analogy, if your neighbourhood tea-stall is not doing well, it probably means the local economy is in the dumps. We hire locally and we buy locally, which leads to a more economically secure neighbourhood. The owners of this property live here as well — we take care of their water and power needs in the same ways we do for the hotel. We ensure the drainage and cleanliness of our neighbourhood is maintained.

OT: What does an engineer do in a hotel, generally speaking?

Binoy Sreedhar: We are invisible and somewhat undermined, I’ll admit. It’s a glamorous industry where the front office and F&B interface is well known. But infrastructure is the backbone of hospitality. We may be away from the limelight but our efforts result in genuine savings to the bottom line. Everything has to work like clockwork. The back-end is crucial for that.

OT: That drew you to the hospitality sector? What do you like the most about it?

Binoy Sreedhar: I am a structural engineer with some experience in R&D, and spent nearly a decade with Thermax, the engineering giant, and they had several hotel projects. That work was my first experience of the hospitality sector. I have come to really enjoy the huge spectrum of work that I do here. Earlier, I used to be a specialist. Now, I oversee everything from data networking to security systems to water treatment. I am continuously updated on the latest innovations. That’s a huge plus in hospitality.

OT: You grew up in Goa, so you know the effects of tourism on the local economy firsthand.

Binoy Sreedhar: Goa today is very different from the Goa of my childhood. There is less greenery, more buildings. When I was a kid, we used to visit Bangalore for our summer vacations and we would need sweaters! Not any more, of course. MNCs came to Bangalore because it had such great weather. But we forget the very things that drew us to a place and use them up.

OT: How has your work influenced your lifestyle?

Binoy Sreedhar: Well, I look more closely into what’s in our fridge these days (laughs). And our electricity bills, of course. We stock less and walk more to the market. It’s healthier.

OT: What do you like to do in your free time?

Binoy Sreedhar: I like to holiday in Kerala because I love its greenery and beaches. I also like to paint, oil on canvas, though I don’t get enough time for it.

Binoy Sreedhar, Director of Engineering Mövenpick Hotel and Spa Bangalore, 115, Gokula Extension, Near BEL Circle Bangalore- 560054