Whitbread's flagship 'green' Premier Inn opens today (8 December) in Tamworth, Staffordshire.

The 20-bed property is part of the hotel operator's plans to minimise its impact on the environment and is designed to reduce energy consumption by up to 80 per cent. The hotel includes ground-source heat pumps, which use the earth's natural energy to cool and heat the hotel, as well as providing hot water throughout. Grey water recycling will provide all of the hotel's toilet water use, saving 20 per cent on water usage, while solar panels are expected provide enough warm water for 1,000 baths every year. High efficiency thermal and acoustic insulation has been installed, as has low-energy motion sensor lighting.

"This hotel is truly ground-breaking in that this combination of technologies has never been used before in the UK," said Alan Parker, chief executive of Whitbread. "They were chosen from a range of initiatives that we believe deliver the most positive social and environmental impact on future build hotels." "Hotel energy use is a complex equation and we have taken a first step in deploying all technologies available to us, in order that we get it just right."