Our commitment to sustainability

YAYS believes that good hospitality should be combined with attention to our ecosystem. We acknowledge that our industry inevitably impacts the environment and our society and we try to minimize this as much as possible. We think it is important to take our responsibility and therefore committed to implement a Sustainability Management Plan and become a proud member of Green Globe.

Green Globe.

Green Globe is the global certification for sustainable tourism. Membership is reserved for companies and organizations who are committed to making positive contributions to people and the planet. Criteria vary from reducing waste, energy and water to supporting good causes, sustainability training for employees, awareness among suppliers and much more.

To guarantee compliance with the highest international standards, a third-party independent auditor is appointed. We are guided to the certification process by the consultancy services of ‘Green Earth Hospitality’, who are experts in sustainable tourism. We are happy to inform you about the measures we have taken to operate in a more sustainable way.

Our Sustainability Management Plan is focussed on three main aspects:

environmental impact
social commitment
health and safety

Environmental impact.

Energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions:

We monitor our consumption of gas, electricity and greenhouse gas emissions monthly to gain more insight and to set reduction goals
We carry out preventive maintenance, to ensure proper and long-lasting functioning of electrical appliances
95% of all our lights are LED which is very energy efficient. We are aiming to increase this percentage
Outdoor lighting is controlled by a motion sensor
We have high-efficiency hot water boilers
We encourage our customers to use public transport and we have rental bikes.

Water consumption:

To achieve water savings, we carry out monthly monitoring of our consumption
The toilets are dual flush
Cleaning of room linen is provided only every 7 days which saves water on linen cleaning and room cleaning.

Reducing waste:

We use Renewi as our waste partner. Renewi re-uses all waste and turns it into renewal energy
Paperless Express check-out is offered (reducing the number of paper bills)
The paper that we use for printing collateral printing paper is eco-labelled and from sustainable forestry.

Social Commitment

Sponsoring:

City Swim – we participate in the City Swim yearly with a team of volunteers
We offer our guests the YAYS Neighbourhood Guide, a book we create with the goal of supporting small local entrepreneurs and contribute to the neighbourhood community.

Training:

Our employees benefit from training opportunities throughout their careers. This enables everyone to develop and improve their professional skills. Sustainability training is one of the mandatory training that all employees have to attend and all new employees receive this training during the orientation training day.

Health and safety

At YAYS we take health and safety very seriously. We take precautionary measures to guarantee a safe working environment for employees, and a safe place to stay for our guests. In order to ensure this, we follow strict procedures.

Evacuation exercises are held twice a year
During the introduction period, new employees are informed about the safety procedures
Fire equipment is checked every year
Multiple employees are trained to give first aid

Questions or suggestions?

If you have any questions about our sustainability policy, we are happy to inform you. Should you have suggestions to further improve our efforts, we would like to hear from you as well. Your feedback can help us improve our yearly sustainability score.