Decarbonization 2025 Award

Minor Hotels Europe & Americas has been recognized with the Decarbonization Award at the Traveling for Happiness 2025 awards for its firm commitment to reducing emissions in the tourism sector and for incorporating climate action as a key pillar of its strategic planning. This recognition highlights the application of clean technologies, the optimization of energy use, and the implementation of innovative solutions aimed at advancing towards carbon neutrality, in line with European objectives to combat climate change.

The NH Collection Palacio de Aranjuez Decarbonization Project stands out for its measurable environmental impact and for demonstrating that decarbonization can be successfully applied in heritage environments while maintaining standards of quality, comfort, and guest experience.

Decarbonization applied to a historic building

The NH Collection Palacio de Aranjuez, a protected historic building, has undergone a comprehensive renovation aimed at eliminating the use of fossil fuels and significantly improving the hotel's energy efficiency. The work included replacing traditional systems with aerothermal heat pumps, removing evaporative cooling towers, improving thermal insulation, and modernizing the air conditioning, ventilation, and hydraulic network installations, incorporating variable flow systems, new valves, circulation pumps, and optimized thermal insulation.

In addition, all lighting has been replaced with high-efficiency LED technology and a centralized control system (BMS) has been implemented to manage thermal comfort levels based on the actual occupancy of each room, optimizing energy consumption without affecting the guest experience. Thanks to these measures, the hotel has managed to reduce its non-renewable primary energy consumption by 31.65%, improve its energy rating, and significantly reduce its CO₂ emissions, establishing itself as a benchmark for energy efficiency in historic buildings in the tourism sector.

A corporate strategy aligned with climate action

In parallel with this project, Minor Hotels Europe & Americas is developing a corporate decarbonization strategy that integrates environmental, social, and economic impact. In the field of sustainable mobility, it promotes Green Mobility initiatives, with more than 100 hotels offering bicycle rental, electric vehicle charging points in 57 establishments, and carpooling projects implemented in several hotels in the Algarve, actively contributing to the reduction of emissions.

The companyalso promotesThe Forest Project, an emissions offset program through the reforestation of the "Valley of Dreams," which has enabled the planting of 4,013 native trees, the generation of 1,203 hours of rural employment, and an estimated absorption of 1,043 tons of CO₂ equivalent. This commitment is reinforced by the use of renewable energy, which already accounts for 85% of the electricity consumed by the company and reaches 100% in hotels in southern Europe, as well as a sustainable purchasing policy that involves the value chain in emission reduction targets.