Fifteen Melbourne hotels are expecting to cut the amount of rubbish sent to landfill from their premises by between 20-40% within the coming year as part of a program launched by the City of Melbourne.

The hotels are part of the City of Melbourne’s Savings in the City, an environmental program to help businesses to reduce waste and energy and water consumption.

City of Melbourne Lord Mayor John So said the hotels were now Waste Wise-certified and had been benchmarked against international environmental standards.

“These hotels, which comprise 16% of the rooms available in our municipality, have successfully completed the first stage of the program which involved developing and implementing waste reduction action plans,” So said.

“This is a terrific start for these hotels that are taking part in Savings in the City. A couple of the hotels have established environment committees or green teams to lead their environmental initiatives, while two others have completed energy audits,”

The program is building a support network for hotels to gain access to professional advice about a range of resources where natural resource minimisation has positive environmental and financial implications.

The council says three of the hotels were among the top 200 water users in the City of Melbourne. Hotels also generate up to 18% of all waste in the City if Melbourne municipality and were the first sector to be targeted in Savings in the City.