A Green Key hotel, at 41 rue de Clichy
The Green Key label, known in France as Clef Verte, goes to properties whose environmental practices are checked rather than merely claimed. It is run in France by Teragir, within the international Green Key programme supported by the Foundation for Environmental Education. Hôtel R de Paris holds it, and our record is public in the label's official directory.
A label makes for a poor story. Habits are another matter. Here are ours, as they are practised at 41 rue de Clichy.
The cleaning is done with steam, vinegar and Marseille soap
Rooms are cleaned using the Raypath method: steam, vinegar and Marseille soap, with no chemical products. A steam cleaner handles the deep cleaning of rooms and surfaces. In the bathrooms, where we still use a little, the products are certified environmentally friendly.
That takes a long list of things out of the hotel: synthetic fragrances, harsh carpet cleaners, chemical air fresheners, corrosive and allergenic products. With them go the plastic packaging that held them and the deliveries that brought them. And if you would rather your room were not serviced every day, a word at reception is enough.
Energy: double glazing, LEDs, and meters read every month
- Double glazing in 100% of the rooms, which serves the quiet as much as the heating.
- Reversible air conditioning, which uses 25 to 40% less than conventional heating, with the temperature regulated in unoccupied rooms.
- Low-energy LED bulbs in 80% of the premises, motion sensors in the corridors.
- Capped temperature thresholds in the rooms and in the common areas.
- Monthly readings of the water, gas and electricity meters. It is the least spectacular line on this page and probably the most useful: consumption that nobody measures never goes down.
Water comes down to details you will never see
Water-saving taps and shower heads, meticulous maintenance to catch leaks, washing machines and dishwashers run only at full load, bed linen changed on request or when visibly soiled, towels reused if you wish. None of it is noticeable from the room. That is precisely the point.
Five waste streams sorted, and above all less waste to sort
Sorting covers five streams: glass, plastic, metal, paper and cardboard, wood. Collection frequency and the number of containers are matched to the daily volume, hazardous waste is handled securely, and every room has a compartmented bin.
But sorting comes at the end of the chain. Before it comes what we stopped buying: single-use tableware, gone; the small shampoo and shower gel tubes in the bathrooms, gone as well; liquid soap, now organic and in dispensers; toilet paper, recycled.
What we ask of our teams, and what we do not ask of our guests
Every job here comes with its own training in environmental practice, from housekeeping to the front desk. Information on public transport and the nearest bike hire is available to guests, as are the walking routes: Liège 3 minutes away, Place de Clichy 6, Trinité d'Estienne d'Orves 8, Gare Saint-Lazare 7. From this address, a car is of little use.
What we do not do is turn a stay into an ecology lesson. Eco-friendly habits are suggested, displayed, explained on request. Never imposed on someone who came to Paris for two nights.
The hotel's owner completed the Convention des Entreprises pour le Climat programme
That programme guides French company directors towards a business model compatible with planetary boundaries. It probably explains why the decisions listed on this page arrived in batches rather than one at a time, and why several of them cost more than the option they replaced.
For a company, a label carries more weight than a statement of intent
More and more organisations ask their staff to stay in certified properties. Green Key answers that kind of criterion: mandatory requirements, an audit and a renewal every year. The hotel's public record in the label's directory can be attached, as it stands, to a supplier file or a travel policy, as can our one-page responsible accommodation sheet (PDF), which sets out the same commitments.
If your visit is a professional one, our pages on the hotel for trade shows in Paris and on business stays near Saint-Lazare set out the access and the services. For the rest, there are the rooms.
What this label does not say
It does not say that a stay is carbon neutral, nor that a 40-room Paris hotel has solved anything. It says that a set of precise commitments is kept, checked and reviewed every year. That is more modest. It is also verifiable, which is why we would rather publish the list than an adjective.
The management