On your next visit stay at the EARTH-friendly Green Room and get 15% extra Taj InnerCircle Points

Dear Guest, The next time you stay at the Taj, you may notice that a few rooms are specially branded as Green Rooms. In fact, one of them could be yours. Inside you will find small but significant changes that go a long way to make these special rooms more environment friendly. For instance, the mini bar is replaced with a snack bar cutting the need for refrigeration and the effluents it producesThe lights are all CFL lamps, far more energy-efficient than ordinary onesThe bedside note pad has fewer pages and the paper is handmade and recyclable (more pages are just a call away)And the newspaper is your preferred one. The air-conditioning is pre-set at 24-degree C, up from the usual 18 degrees, saving up to 30% of energy consumed at lower temperatures. Instead of flowers, there is a live potted plant and the room is non-smoking. The bath and bed linen are changed every other day, instead of every day, halving the use of detergent. When you insert your key card, the TV switches on and tells you more about the Green Room which is part of project EARTH, Environment Awareness & Renewal at Taj Hotels. Long before sustainability became a buzzword, the Taj Group had taken countless steps towards making our hotels and indeed the entire organisation more environment friendly. Our Eco Taj Policy sets the guidelines on minimising the use of water and energy and the emission of effluents. We constantly work with independent consultants in bettering our environmental record. We have asked our architects, designers and engineers to make each hotel more 'intelligent' and environment friendly, even set down guidelines for our vendors. The Green Room is our latest step in this direction. We aim to go well beyond the norms set by our Green Globe Certification*, the only worldwide environmental certification programme for the travel and tourism industry. But of course, our first concern is your comfort and convenience. Many of you have already adopted future friendly practices at your homes that go far beyond those possible at any hotel. Yet, we need your approval and suggestions before we scale up the Green Room initiative which is currently at a test level. As members of the Taj InnerCircle you set the standards for us. Hence, it is especially important that any new development should find favour with you. As a token of our appreciation you will receive 15% extra Taj InnerCircle Points on your stay at the Green Rooms. Do indicate your preference for a Green Room when making your reservations. Green Rooms are available at 6 Taj Hotels now: The Taj Palace Hotel - N Delhi, Taj Lands End - Mumbai, Taj Bengal - Kolkata, 51 Buckingham Gate London,Taj Connemara Chennai and The Gateway Hotel Bangalore.

If you support this initiative, the Green Rooms will soon be available at many more hotels and in larger numbers. Who knows, one day all rooms may be Green Rooms at the Taj. We eagerly look forward to your comments and feedback; do write in atgreenroom.earth@tajhotels.com. Yours for a better EARTH, Name Designation PS Be assured that any change you may like is only a call away. Should you like a drink you only have to order room service, to change the temperature the remote is at hand. For more newspapers, just give us a call. *Awarded by EC3 Global, Green Globe is the international benchmarking and certification programme based on the Agenda 21 Principles for Sustainable Development endorsed by 182 heads of state at the United Nations Rio Earth Summit in 1992.

www.tajhotels.com