Volume 2, No. 2. January 25, 2002
Friendly environment
While most theme parks focus on creating
a certain environment for guests within the park, Europa-Park has concentrated
on maintaining the environment outside its gates, as well. For its ecological
efforts, the Rust, Germany, theme park has received an annual award from the
state of Baden-Württemberg recognizing firms that practice environmentally
friendly operations.
"It's quite outstanding that a big leisure park gets this kind of prize," said
Europa-Park Public Relations Associate Martina Evers. "Other companies are more
likely to get these kinds of prizes, but we have tried for several years to
achieve certain standards in environmental protection."
That effort has included hiring a technician, since 1995, devoted full-time
to environmental issues within the park. "He checks every process to see if
there is a more ecological way to do it," Evers said. Europa-Park has its own
water and power plants, including the largest solar energy plant of any leisure
facility in Europe, Evers said, delivering 250,000 KW annually. Ten percent
of all the park's power is also regenerated from original usage. For example,
cooling systems require large amounts of energy to operate, energy which produces
excess heat outside the cooling unit. Europa-Park is capturing that excess heat
and using it to power other operations.
"The full-time job was created because, since the early '90s, we put in some
new technologies, and this helped to reduce costs," Evers said. "So, management
was interested to find even more effective ways to reduce costs using modern
technologies and saving energy. In every process there's one way or another
to save energy."
Europa-Park also has instituted several management initiatives. Suppliers, especially
in the food-service department, are instructed to reduce their packaging or
retrieve the packaging after deliveries. The park's technicians building rides
and craftsmen building facades must calculate their material needs beforehand
to limit waste and, where possible, use any material left over in other applications.
Employees currently engage in a recycling program, dividing their waste by paper,
plastic and glass, a program which may expand to patrons in the future, Evers
said. Environmental issues, like safety and customer service, are integrated
in employee training programs, and employees can also make suggestions to reduce
waste or improve the park's environmental performance and receive monetary rewards
for implemented ideas.
For the park, earning the Baden-Württemberg Minister of Environment and
Transport prize, which will be bestowed in a July 4 ceremony, is more than a
long-sought honor; it is a major marketing coup. "In Europe, it is getting more
and more important for your image to be environmentally friendly, especially
in Germany," Evers said. Putting in so much effort into environmental issues,
she said, "can only be an advantage."