The ECOINN Hotel am Campus, according to its new CO2 footprint still the most ecological hotel in Europe and probably soon to be nominated for the German Sustainability Award 2020, celebrated its 10th birthday with 40 invited guests from politics, business, culture and the neighbourhood. Alongside keynote speaker Jürgen Trittin, those offering their congratulations included Grit Puchan, Ministerial Director at the Ministry of Agriculture, theatre director Friedrich Schirmer, the Vice-Rector of Esslingen University Prof. Dr Czarnetzki, DEHOGA Vice-President Hans-Ulrich Kauderer and Amos Heuss, head of the neighbouring youth and cultural centre Komma. The Mayor of Urbach, B.A.U.M. board member Schwager and the new Esslingen town councillor and “fashion king” Alexander Kögel with his wife were also present.
In his welcome, hotel manager Thomas Puchan referred among other things to the hotel’s climate positivity and energy self-sufficiency, based on its own renewable energy generation, but also highlighted the ECOINN as a social enterprise. He welcomed keynote speaker Jürgen Trittin as his “speaker of choice” for the anniversary, as he had been the last Federal Environment Minister to deserve the title. “The Fridays for Future movement would be delighted with you!” Puchan said.
In his speech, Jürgen Trittin praised, among other things, the hotel’s exceptional activities for the environment and climate protection, but also its special achievements on the social level, which, alongside ecology and economy, is the third pillar of sustainability.
“Your hotel is a model for business in general, but especially in the German tourism and business scene,” Trittin stated, and surprised hotel manager Thomas Puchan with the new, current CO2 footprint from Viabono which, per average overnight stay, is once again the lowest in the whole of Europe, as it was in 2017.
“One can only congratulate you, dear Mr Puchan, and hope that you continue along this consistent path and receive support from all sides, whether from your city or from other authorities and institutions. The innovative strength that once distinguished German business and politics has been lost over the past 14 years; China is setting the course for us, and that is shameful.
So we urgently need innovative role models and beacons in our economy, and you are, without any doubt, one of them.”
Whether the training network for young people from countries with high youth unemployment, which Puchan founded and leads, the sustainable education initiative for hotel trainees or the commitment to sustainability in associations and networks: “Here, too, you clearly do more than you have to, but that is also necessary to keep our world worth living in.”
The ECOINN team also received unreserved praise, as well as the DEHOGA Environment Check certificate in Gold 2019, from Hans-Ulrich Kauderer, member of the DEHOGA state executive board.
“You are the perfect neighbour for us,” Vice-Rector Prof. Dr Walter Theodor Czarnetzki of the neighbouring university noted with a twinkle in his eye in his very warm address. “We research sustainably, you do business sustainably!” He regretted the untimely death of ECOINN founder Rainer Dold and assured Thomas Puchan of the “deeply felt, long-standing friendship of Esslingen University for the decades to come”.
Puchan, who has been in charge of the hotel since 2012, also expressed his special thanks to his team, without whom the success would not have been and would not be possible, and in his reply summarised the most important facts and awards of the past 10 years:
- 2009, after 2 years of renovating and converting the historic mill, opening of the ECOINN Hotel am Campus by Federal Building Minister Tiefensee as a “national flagship project”
- well over 500 people with disabilities have since found qualification opportunities and employment
- since 2012, an eco-certified, zero-waste breakfast buffet, now with almost 90% organic and over 90% regional produce
- 2012 award by Viabono and Environment Minister Untersteller as the first climate hotel in Baden-Württemberg
- 2013 first DEHOGA Environment Check in Gold
- 2014 Climate Award of the City of Esslingen
- 2014: signing of the “Charta der Vielfalt” (Diversity Charter) with the Minister of State at the Federal Chancellery in Berlin
- since 2014, membership of the business association UnternehmensGrün e.V.
- steady reduction of the CO2 footprint, verified since 2017 as the lowest per overnight stay in Europe
- 2015 opening of the affiliated ECONVENT conference venue
- since 2016, training project for young people from countries with high youth unemployment; 2017 founding of a training network with other training companies, with the ECOINN as lead partner and organiser
- since 2017, membership of the Greenline Hotels cooperation
- ongoing energy efficiency measures; in 2018, for example, technology was installed to use the waste heat from the power turbine
- 2018 switch to chemical-free cleaning using only modern dry steam cleaners
- since 2018, membership of the business association B.A.U.M. e.V.
- 2018 award of “Green Sign Level 5”, with the best result of all certified hotels
- October 2018: winner of the “Innovationspreis Ausbildung” (Training Innovation Award) of the Stuttgart Region Chamber of Commerce and Industry
- 2018 nomination for the Baden-Württemberg Environment Award
- 2018 Environment Award of Stadtwerke Tübingen
- from September 2019, third year of the sustainable education project for hospitality trainees, supported by the Ministry of the Environment in Stuttgart and the academic Prof. Dr Sandra Rochnowski
Expected at the beginning of July 2019: nomination for the German Sustainability Award 2020
You can read Mr Jürgen Trittin’s speech in full here: Klimaschutz ist machbar (Climate protection is achievable)
On 26 June 2019, the Eßlinger Zeitung published the following article about our celebration:
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Hotel Ecoinn celebrated Esslingen. Esslingen’s Ecoinn has made a name for itself as “Europe’s most ecological hotel” and is regarded in the industry as a pioneer of a development that emphasises ecological and social standards. The hotel opened in 2009 in a historic building on Kanalstraße, which the operators had brought “up to new-build standard in structure and energy efficiency”. Since then, the Ecoinn, which also runs the nearby Econvent conference venue, has repeatedly received awards for its commitment. Now hotel director Thomas Puchan and his team have celebrated the tenth anniversary of their hotel. They received applause from numerous guests and from an authoritative voice: former Federal Environment Minister Jürgen Trittin, who later appeared as a guest at the “Talk im Econvent” (see adjacent text), honoured the Ecoinn Hotel am Campus at the afternoon ceremony as a courageous pioneer of sustainable hospitality: “I often stay in hotels, but I have never stayed in an energy self-sufficient hotel before.” The Ecoinn aims to relieve the burden on the environment and the climate by using renewable energy. The operators set out with the goal of generating all the electricity consumed in the hotel from renewable sources. In fact, three times that amount is produced in the hotel’s own hydroelectric plant, and the heat for heating and hot water is obtained from Neckar water by means of a heat pump. “That makes us an energy-plus hotel,” Puchan stresses. An eco-certified breakfast buffet is just as much part of the concept as the urban beehives on the roof. And the Ecoinn also shows its colours socially: people with disabilities are a natural part of the team, and new paths are also being taken in training. Vice-Rector Professor Walter Czarnetzki brought the congratulations of the neighbouring university on the tenth anniversary and wished for “fruitful cooperation for the next decades too”. DEHOGA representative Hans-Ulrich Kauderer presented the hotel and restaurant association’s Environment Check in Gold and praised: “The Ecoinn’s holistic concept deserves the greatest respect. We would like to see many more businesses in the industry put these ideas into practice.” Jürgen Trittin sees it the same way: “What you have created here is exemplary. And it shows that energy self-sufficiency and CO2 neutrality are achievable.” Examples like this showed that it was right to tackle essential changes in the interests of climate protection and sustainability courageously instead of simply waiting. (adi) |
Here are some pictures of our celebration
