CIRCULAR ECONOMY AND ENERGY EFFICIENCY IN KAZAKHSTAN’S FIVE-STAR HOTELS

Abstract

Hotels are among the most resource- and energy-intensive commercial buildings, yet circular-economy and energy-efficiency practices are seldom examined jointly, and evidence from Central Asia is almost absent. The purpose of the article is to determine how these practices are implemented in internationally branded five-star hotels operating in Kazakhstan and to propose a sequenced implementation framework. Semi-structured interviews with sustainability-responsible managers of four hotels in Astana, Almaty and Aktau were triangulated with corporate documentation and coded against an explicit maturity rubric. Energy efficiency is established in all four cases; circularity is established in one and developing in three. Maturity declines as practices move beyond the boundary of the individual property.