Radisson Blu Iveria Installs Electric Charger Station
On December 5, Radisson Blu Iveria opened an electro car charger station, making it the first company in Georgia to join the innovative project by E-space in order to contribute to the country's infrastructure development and promotion of electric vehicles. Within this initiative the hotel aims to challenge other companies to take care of the environment and ecology. The opening ceremony was attended by the representatives of City Hall and the Land Transport Agency.
Vice Mayor of Tbilisi, Irakli Lekvinadze, talked to GEORGIA TODAY on the importance of having electro charger stations for electric vehicles.
“E-space is a company that carries out actions to develop electric charger equipment throughout the country. The recent opening was an important step towards promoting electric vehicles which are vital for our city Tbilisi, as we believe that the promotion of electric vehicles directly relates to the improvement of the environment and decrease in pollution. That is why we support E-space and every other company that approaches us with such initiatives,” he said.
The executive director of E-space, Sulkhan Gvalia, also talked about the importance of promoting electric vehicle infrastructure.
“Our company started to create infrastructure for electric vehicles in order to popularize the eco-friendly technologies of future. We have installed two chargers already with the support of Tbilisi City Hall. Radisson Blu Iveria is the first hotel to follow our initiative and give us a parking slot,” Gvalia told us.
The General Manager of Radisson Blu Iveria, Jordi Kuijt, expressed the company’s enthusiasm for carrying out such Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities:
“We as a hotel always focus on sustainability- we already have a Green Key Certificate which stands for taking care of the environment, and this fits in perfectly with the E-space initiative- something which it is new and innovative for Georgia, while in other European countries it is already standard practise. It would be nice to have that standard in Georgia as well. In Amsterdam, I was driving around in an electric car. Now with a charger station here and the future installation of others, I’ll be soon able to do the same in Georgia. It will make a huge difference environmentally. It is pure CSR activity: we not doing it for any commercial reasons,” Kuijt told GEORGIA TODAY.
The 2016 data from the International Energy Agency claims Georgia is the first among the countries of the world in air pollution-related deaths. For this reason, it is crucial that the private sector engages in activities related to the improvement of environmental factors here.
From December 5, Radisson Blu Iveria is offering free use of the hotel parking lot at the charger station for one year in a joint project between Radisson Blu and E-space, and part of the social campaign "More Oxygen to the City."
Natia Liparteliani