Sustainability

The failure of circularity so far has a lot to do with the perceived bennefits for companies, and the hospitality industry is no different. The purpose of circularity is not clear for managers if it is not connected to key performance indicators at corporate level.

Circularity as a concept faces restraints in hospitality companies. One explanation could be that hospitality managers hardly ever control the entire product or resource cycle from cradle to grave/ cradle. That being said, efforts for 1) improved recycling, 2) waste reduction and 3) utilization of used and recycling materials and resources has become a reality in most companies.

Embedding circular economy principles into hospitality is not a myth, but a necessary ambition. It is crucial that the industry transitions away from a linear and extractive business model to a circular model with regenerative environmental impacts.

Yes, we need hospitality development to both cater to growing demand and to ensure conservation of biodiversity. It is not sustainable to rely exclusively on tax or donor funded conservation. We need the business community to be a part of it, and to make it financially viable.

The central question posed to the panel is: should the hotel industry refrain or not from developing in remote or rich natural areas? Although I may be accused to have imbibed too much of the Dutch directedness, my immediate answer would be that it should!

I believe the answer to these questions lies in the desired reason for a new project build, and the intrinsic ethos of the decision makers. If the anticipated outcome for development is purely economic, then the planned tourist accommodation build should not take place.

In order to grasp a vision for a preferable future, it might be useful to rewind to our past. According to Prof. Em. Conrad Lashley, the origins of tourism and hospitality lie in "hospitableness", or the human faculty to welcome and host strangers.

Of course, the question is a false dichotomy. We must do both - Think and act locally; think and act globally.Global standards, like the GSTC criteria, provide comprehensive frameworks designed to ensure holistic approaches to sustainability.

Certifications that I am familiar with that have the most flexibility are EarthCheck and ISO 14001. As management systems, they are not points-based checklists that many times allow a property to be doing well in one area, without a focus on other areas.

For the technical stuff, a GSTC accredited certification organization. For sustainability leadership insights, stories, advice (e.g. how to get started, how to succeed, pitfalls to avoid,..) the Sustainability Leaders Project, Sustainability-leaders.com.

I was finding it hard to explain the difference between net zero and carbon neutral in an easy way that everyone would understand. Everything I found online was too long, too complicated or just not succinct enough until I found a fantastic blog by Ecologi that puts it into simple and understandable terms.

I don't have go-to websites for sustainability matters but we launched last year the Hospitality of the Future Think Tank, focusing on providing information and actionable tools and ideas around sustainability and following the UN SDGs.

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.