Sustainability
Responsible Artificial Intelligence offers hospitality multiple benefits whilst delivering competitive sustainability advantages
Sustainable hospitality is highly complex to deliver, so the prospects of using Responsible Artificial Intelligence are exciting and results are already strong.
AI used for Food Waste monitoring
My experience with the usage of AI is related to "Intelligent Scales" used to monitor food waste in the kitchens. This technology is combining scales and a camera that can analyse the content of the bin and help to make a choice when it comes to categorize the type of food waste, for example: trimmings, french fries, ...
AI for sustainability: an oxymoron?
AI is ushering in a new era of innovation and efficiency within the hospitality industry by enhancing utility consumption and waste management, ensuring regulatory compliance, and promoting eco-friendly behaviors among guests[1]. These benefits appeal to managers for their cost-effectiveness and competitiveness[2], while environmental advantages, like reducing food waste[3], are clear. Yet even the most adamant proponent of AI recognizes the challenges of data privacy, ethics, and the risk of over-reliance on technology [4]. Often overlooked are the energy demands of AI, such as AI-powered chatbots consuming the energy equivalent of 33,000 homes. Additionally, demand for new data centers to support AI is rising, with their own significant environmental and social issues[5].
AI in sustainable hospitality: Complementing human efforts for optimal results
While AI and technology are often heralded as transformative tools in the push for sustainability, especially in sectors like hospitality, it is crucial to recognise their limitations. AI can optimise energy usage, streamline operations, and provide valuable insights, but it does not physically insulate walls or address the skills gap necessary to design, develop, and construct hotels and buildings sustainably. Implementing sustainability measures, such as installing energy-efficient insulation and reducing embodied carbon, relies heavily on skilled labour and new construction practices. These physical and human elements are indispensable and cannot be replaced by AI.
Currently, AI is not the main answer for all sustainability challenges
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is undoubtedly a powerful tool when paired with the right resources. In recent years, AI has significantly enhanced data collection, analysis, pattern recognition, logistics optimization, and operational efficiency across various industries.
Sustainable practises related to AI implementation
AI is not a panacea for all our sustainability challenges but a powerful tool whose efficacy relies heavily on the blend of technological integration and human-centric strategies.
Understanding sustainability challenges in the Galapagos Islands
Since 2020, an interdisciplinary research team from EHL Hospitality Business School, the Catholic University in Quito, and the Charles Darwin Research Station at the Galapagos in Ecuador have been studying the challenges associated with tourism dynamics at the world-famous UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Galapagos Islands. This article summarizes the main findings of this collaboration: the carrying capacity of the islands, the sustainability transition of tourism, and the political challenges that have been affecting sustainability efforts in the archipelago.
When it comes to reducing or eliminating food being wasted and transforming diets, what holds us back?
Our global food systems need an overhaul. We are wasting food at every stage of the food cycle and a large proportion of the food we are growing is arguably not good for us or the planet – the waste of resources is magnified if the food we do produce minimal nutritional value in the first place.
Reducing Food Waste in Hospitality: The Key is not what to do, but how to do it...
The key question – not What, How
UN Tourism International Forum – Quintana Roo “Tourism and Culture: A Picture-Perfect Relationship”
Organized by UN Tourism and the Government of the State of Quintana Roo through the Tourism Promotion Council of Quintana Roo – an entity that is an Affiliate Member of UN Tourism – the International Forum "Tourism and Culture: A Picture-Perfect Relationship" has put the spotlight on the potential of audiovisual tourism to boost the product offerings of destinations and its suitability for tourism marketing and promotion. Participants discussed the creation and implementation of public policies for promotion through audiovisual content, raising awareness among tourists about environmental and cultural protection through on-screen content, as well as the broader relationship between tourism, culture and creative industries.
Redefining Social Sustainability: A Net Positive Approach for the Hospitality Industry
From the perspective of the Sustainable Hospitality Alliance and the Net Positive Hospitality philosophy, it's crucial that companies measure and report on a variety of social aspects. These include, but are not limited to, employee health and wellbeing, fair and equitable wages, diversity and inclusion, and human rights adherence. To ensure consistency and comparability, reports should utilize internationally recognized standards and frameworks such as the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) or the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB).
Measuring an organisation's social sustainability
Organisations should be measuring the holistic well-being of all stakeholders under the Social component of the "ESG" Framework. An organisations stakeholders typically include employees, local communities, customers, and suppliers. Compared to Environmental ('E') metrics, Social ('S') metrics can be challenging to define and measure, but there are several emerging and established indices and tools that organisations can use to assess their Social imapct. Holistic well-being can be measured through six domains, as recommended by the comprehensive "Well-Being Assessment" (WBA) of the Human Flourishing Program, namely: Emotional Health, Physical Health, Meaning and Purpose, Character Strengths, Social Connectedness and Financial Security, developed by the Sustaianbility and Health Initiative for NetPositive Enterprise (SHINE) at Harvard's School of Public Health. The World Health Organisation's definition of health goes beyond mental and physical health to include the wholeness of a person. Social metrics in the EU are being standardized through the EU Social Taxonomy, a potentially new social reporting tool that will allow organisations to report against decent work, adequate living standards and inclusive and sustainable communities and societies. Companies can also report Social Sustainability against universally recognized protocol such as the UN Guiding Principles on Business & Human Rights or UNSDGs (SDG Goal 3: universal well-being), or more specific well-being indices such as the Happy Planet Index, the World Happiness Report, Global Happiness and Well-Being Policy Report, the OECD's Well-being framework or others. For an organization to effectively measure social sustainability and social impact, stakeholders must be engaged and incentivized to provide regular and real input. In additional to a organisation' immediate stakeholders, the "S" in ESG also considers the wider society(s) and political environment(s) in which an organization operates.
Learning by doing: the short term future of S for longer term preferable futures
I would like to contribute to this HospitalityNet from the viewpoint of my independent consulting experience. Here, from 2021 through 2023, I had the opportunity to work with an Italian smart city affordable housing scale up, connecting their Community Development business unit to the Real Estate line of the business. It is part of their USP to offer Community Development services in the new settlements they build in Brazil and -in a joint venture- in India, and they deliver consulting services in community management in European Union countries, like Italy. In the last two years, the enterprise has matured the awareness that a specific ESG Department represented a new business opportunity, whereby their experience in environmental and social sustainability might be transferred through consulting services to the wider market. Their ESG capability is integrated in the newly formed Digital and Advisory department, based on their Italian state-of-the-art competence centre. In conclusion, such company, labeled as a potential Italian unicorn, might offer combined lessons
Placing Wellness and Sustainability as Core Hotel Values with the Fairmont Mayakoba
Spread across a sprawling 45-acre ocean-facing campus with 401 rooms and suites, the five-diamond, AAA Fairmont Mayakoba has long been on our bucket list of resorts worth visiting. Just outside of Playa del Carmen in the heart of the remarkably popular sun destination that is the Mayan Riviera (especially for Canadian snowbirds like the two of us), the Fairmont Mayakoba property intrigued us because of its diverse array of amenities, its sustainable luxury approach within the broader Mexican hospitality industry and its core focus on authentic wellness experiences.
Radical changes for Positive Hospitality
In the hospitality industry - just like in the business world in general - a paradigm shift is necessary [see NRDC], which calls for radical changes.
Climate resilience calls for radical change
Radical changes are undoubtedly called for in a world struggling to cope with climate change, and in my own country that is in the verge of being governed by politicians denying climate science. It is certainly called for in a tourism and hospitality sector that is still managed on the basis of traditional economic measures: number of visitors, number of overnight stays, average spending, guest satisfaction, growth in numbers, markets and destinations. Annual dashboards and programs are always framed in positivity: road maps for flourishing economies, objectives to achieve climate neutrality, set comfortably far ahead in time—2030 is usually the closest date. In contrast to these cautious, mainly voluntary strategies, some economists warn that the current economic system will inevitably destroy planetary resources: they predict scenarios of degrowth and government-imposed budgeting of consumption.