Sustainability

Restoration and regeneration are seen by many as the next frontier of sustainability in general and sustainability in hospitality and tourism in particular. NHL Stenden Hotel Management School (Leeuwarden, the Netherlands) has joined forces with Smart Travel Lab and the Ryerson University Hotel Management School to launch a challenge for hospitality management students: "The Regeneration Collection".

Hospitality businesses should develop detailed plans that enable them to eliminate their carbon emissions in the next one to two decades. The plans should include the achievement of periodic milestones. There are three steps to eliminating carbon emissions, and they don't need to be completed in order.

Tackling climate change and biodiversity loss can seem like a huge challenge and getting started is often the hardest part. I believe concrete action number one starts with you, the business owner. The process of integrating more sustainable practices that help tackle climate change and biodiversity loss into a business does not have a start and a finish.

COP26 is important, because if we ALL don't finally take action against climate change, things will get tight. But what is even more important is the COP15. Am I too late or did I get the numbers mixed up? No, from October 11 - 15 the COP15 of the Convention on Biological Diversity (the CBD) will take place - and there, unlike with climate change, it is not about the question "how will we live in the future?" but about the question "will we live in the future?"

The hospitality industry has tried hard for long to live in its own bubble, feeling that until recently, the pressure (from customers and other stakeholders) to become genuinely sustainable was not high enough. Times have changed dramatically, alongside the realization that changing mindsets, processes and technologies to drastically reduce negative operational impacts was no longer a question of IF, but of WHEN.

The COP26 website defines its importance in one line: “The world's best last chance to get runaway climate change under control.” The hospitality industry cannot afford not to care about what is discussed and decided in Glasgow.

It is exciting to see first attempts of hospitality procurement moving away from a mere risk-driven CYA approach to more holistic, impact-driven initiatives. Procurement strategies should be aligned with company sustainability strategies.

Buyers of hotel space and land transport services, whether for corporate travel or leisure travel, seeking sustainable suppliers can either conduct massive analysis of the self-made claims of individual suppliers or they can turn to external verification programs of sustainability claims.

Supply chain management allows a hotel to have a much wider impact than through its operations alone, since it links to many other key topics such as waste management, human rights or carbon emissions. Furthermore, hotels can address many of the SDG's through responsible purchasing.

Many businesses continue to consider sustainability as something that is costly and necessary, rather than to get certified, to engage in additional measures on a voluntary basis and to then communicate all of these efforts pro-actively.

How should the industry communicate the added value of sustainability (rather than added cost) that resonates with guests that espouse similar values? There should be no added cost – in 2 decades of working with hotels on environmental sustainability I have never found a hotel that spent more than they saved – even with large capital investment projects as the savings paid for the investment.

Rather than focus on sustainability, communication should center on more fulfilling experiences that guests will enjoy and the higher quality which such measures often mean. This combined with sharing stories of people and communities who are part of it or benefit.

The value of being outdoors has been thrust into the spotlight by the pandemic and is now prized more than ever before. This is a perfect moment for urban hotel owners to leverage this demand by increasing access to, and encouraging use of, green areas.

When I took note of the topic of this new viewpoint, I felt compelled to step out of my office to go immerse myself in nature to ponder on it. As I was walking mindfully along the banks of the nearby swamp on a sunny spring day, surrounded with blossoming fragrant trees and lulled by the birds' warbling, a delightful sense of serenity and bliss took hold of me.

Climate change is about "how do we live in the future?"; biodiversity loss is about "do we live in the future?" So the question "should we act?" does not arise. Hotels in the urban settings should design their facilities to be biodiversity-friendly and take the issue fully into account in procurement.

The UN IPCC states that to avoid climate catastrophe, the world needs to cut its carbon emissions by almost half by 2030 (from the 2018 level) and close to 100% by 2050. That's quite imaginable for new hotels, but much more challenging for existing ones.

Sustainability-driven legislation should not be only falling on the governments, but also be a responsibility for hospitality operators and investors, using the various legal documents they have at their disposal: design standards, lease/management/franchise agreements, operating guidelines.

I see the biggest potential of legislation in bringing down green premiums for hospitality businesses. Especially in the fields of green energy supply and circular economy solutions, those premiums are still very high and likely to discourage investments into a sustainable future.

Let customers review how sustainable a hotel is by having up to 5 green stars (on top of the existing star rating). Booking.com and TripAdvisor and other such platforms could adopt such a feature not just for hotels but other hospitality businesses too (If they do feature other types).

The perception of sustainable business practice is intrinsically linked to the way it is communicated. Acceptable actions and solutions are framed through language choice and messaging approach. The unexpressed concern that “green” is interpreted as cost-cutting and reduced quality must be eliminated.

Presently travelers have a hard time identifying which hotel goes well in line which what the “green guest” is actually looking for. Two problems arise: First, most tourism operators know too little about their impact on the environment and tools for how to measure and reduce it.

The temptation to type the word People 5 times was too great. But I think People X 5 is still not good enough. So I shall say People in the power of 5! Prior to COVID-19, we were talking about the great need for more hospitality people and how we entice more young people and talent in the industry.

Sustainability is often - and unconsciously - translated as dispense of things we'd like to do or goods we'd like to have. Abandon flying, stop eating meat… But what if we changed not only the narrative but also our attitude? What if we'd rather focused on everything we gained from changing the way we do business, we consume, and we travel?

All stakeholders are becoming more environmentally aware and looking for quantifiable actions, carbon reduction strategies, and clear messages from the businesses they interact with – no more so than the hospitality sector which has a substantial environmental footprint.

The problem is far wider than some may estimate. Hospitality is not just any business. It's the type of business that provides an escape from day to day troubles, it's essential to wellbeing and a vital medicine to society's ills.

Part of the mental balance brought by our professional activities is based on our feelings of contribution and progression, which seem to be two axes that companies can continue to foster. A time of low (no) activity can be an opportunity to organize special theme committees to contribute to the company's improvement and resilience.

The COVID-19 winding road: Personal experience & Importance of CommunityRunning out of energy is exactly where I find myself. I went from an active interpersonal schedule with 200-300 people a day to forced isolation, alone, in Miami, Florida.

Whether hoteliers will do what they can to use the current crisis as an opportunity to be (better) prepared and (more) resilient when the next crisis hits - and the climate emergency for many destinations will be a question of survival - probably depends on their own values and purpose of doing business.

We continue to have a culture and structure problem that blocks a "green recovery". I frequently hear students who work for chains say they read about sustainability initiatives on the corporate website (not a job requirement; it's a class assignment), but then do not see evidence of those commitments at their property.

Readiness and willingness are only two aspects to a “build back better” turnaround to sound eco-friendly and sustainable hospitality industry. Even if both exist, we'll often see a lack of expertise on how to deal with biodiversity and ecosystem services in a manner that makes the difference between greenwashing and responsible business development.

Micro-certification - while certainly useful for hospitality businesses in that they could pick what they need and thus experience a lower entrance barrier to sustainability assessment - would complicate things as customers have no idea what kind of factors contribute to a specific badge or label.

We can learn from how other sectors are grappling with this. After I read the question, I went to my pantry for a selection of items with various certifications - an average of 4 per product. Some labels I always look for (Certified Organic or Humane), others I try to find (B Corp), and others aren't necessary but serve as a trust-building bonus (labels related to allergens or a hodgepodge of ingredient specific ones).

Yes, there is a role for micro-certifications companies who can prove to properly apply international protocols covering specific issues, which are at the top list of the hospitality industry and the international demand. Beyond that particular role, there is also an open space to be full-filled by these organizations adding value through close collaboration and advisory services, helping companies improve their performance in different aspects such as climate neutrality.Micro-certifications are growing in number and outreach and so far, experience shows that there are here to stay.

Whilst we are seeing an increase in some types of SUP due to COVID-19 (hopefully temporarily), we are also suggesting to accommodation providers that this is a great time to break some old habits, particularly around hotel room amenities.

Our devastating dealing with nature and natural ecosystems led to the COVID-19 pandemic. We have scientific proof that the destruction of tropical ecosystems will increase the frequency at which such pandemics will occur, speed up climate change, and exacerbate the global refugee crisis.

I believe our industry over-uses the terms: hospitality and hygiene without focusing on the proper expertise and knowledge and by trying to answer the question of how they work in sync, I want to start by introducing their common meanings: Noun: hygiene is conditions or practices conducive to maintaining health and preventing disease, especially through cleanliness.andSustainability is the ability to exist constantly.

While people are still struggling to survive, some theorists say, they do not think of the common good. Yet what this crisis has shown (for some surprisingly for some not), is that this is not by definition true. In The Netherlands, for example, we see locked-down restaurants offering meals to hospitals' personnel, who have no time to kook for themselves but need more than ever substantial and healthy food.

Covid-19 is a zoonotic disease - one that is transmitted from animals to humans. More than half of all diseases that emerged in the last decades belonged to this group. Scientists believe, that the present pandemic is just the tip of the iceberg.

Comparing the current Covid-19 crisis to a prospective climate crisis solely on the basis of both being crises does not make sense to me. It is more than obvious that each crisis has its own character, cause, and outcome. It is true that both have a serious impact on the hospitality industry, but, would we call it a crisis otherwise?

This is a great question and one closely linked to our recent Sustainability Leaders Project panel question - whether sustainable tourism leads to more and better jobs. The panel's conclusion was that there is a notable relationship between sustainable tourism and jobs, mostly in terms of staff retention (because of more caring, fairer workplaces and a stronger sense of commitment and shared values).

Green teams!! I hear comments like "we tried that once" or "it's the last 15 minutes of our safety committee meeting" or "our executive committee is the green team." None of those is a solution to culture (or sustainability, quite frankly).

When working with hospitality clients on sustainability we found one key success factor: a healthy organization. Without an healthy organization, sustainability cannot be embedded into the corporate culture. This might then keep efforts narrow and superficial.

To avoid falling into the „greenwashing trap” business need to be transparent, honest and modest. Since “greening” is not the core business of most tour-operators, hotels or resorts, investing in the wrong project or a poor strategy might turn into a slippery slope to reputation damage.

As Xavier Font suggested in his interview with the Sustainability Leaders Project: "Put the customer at the centre of the sustainability experience, and tell them how they will have more fun. But do it honestly and without exaggeration." I think this sums it up nicely.

Greenwashing mainly involves claiming to be sustainable or being an eco-hotel which usually does not make any impact on the guests. The best & most effective to way communicate sustainability is by providing it is as a part of service quality.