We Failed! Lessons from Hospitality Sustainability Failures

What a great topic, indeed 'failures' are great learning opportunities for the organisation itself as well as others when shared publicly. 

A mindset of continouus improvement, that is for example inherent to ISO certifications, would enable companies to shift the 'failure' vs 'success' narrative and culture.

Meaningful and transparent sustainbility reporting includes acknowldeging to what extent sustainbility outcomes have been achieved, including reporting on those that are work in progress. This demonstrates that ambitious targets were set initially, in an ideal case based on a publicly available double-materiality assessment. 

Providing a reflection on learnings and offering a clear action plan also instills confidence and trust that the business is seriously committed to sustainability and able to respond and adjust to new challenges. 

There is a very helpful framework - Gibb's Reflective Cycle - that is designed as continuous  cycle of improvement through six steps - description, feelings, evaluation, analysis, conclusion and action plan. I haven't seen this as part of any CSR report yet, but forward thinking companies would do well to embrace this process as part of a culture shift and maybe even include in their reporting.

Many SME accommodation owners begin their sustainability journey with enthusiasm but often fail to sustain long-term change. A key barrier is underestimating the time and commitment needed to overhaul operational processes across departments. As implementation begins, fear or resistance often sets in, particularly when it comes to changing staff behaviour and prioritising sustainability amid day-to-day business pressures. Owners frequently deprioritise staff training or emissions monitoring, despite knowing these are essential to long-term, continuous success. One major obstacle is the lack of legal requirements and the perception that sustainability action can wait as we observe how current reporting obligations for large companies are currently being rolled back and reduced. Read more here about the failures (and the antidote!) Sarah Habsburg has experienced as a sustainability education specialist and SME accommodation business consultant.

To make progress on sustainability, I believe we need to build a culture that values curiosity over criticism, encouraging people to explore what works, what doesn’t, and why. That means treating new ideas as experiments, not tests to pass or fail. Tools like ‘failure boards’ can help normalise trial and error, while also giving teams space to learn from each other before small issues become bigger problems.

This shift is especially important in environments where different teams often have competing priorities. When one department’s success means another misses a target, it’s easy for frustration to turn into blame and for failures to create barriers rather than learning opportunities. A culture of curiosity helps to break the cycle. It encourages teams to collaborate, monitor outcomes together, and adapt as they go.

I’ve seen similar patterns play out time and again. For example, smaller buffet platters reduced waste but led to guest complaints, and refillable dispensers that reduced single-use plastic but drove up shampoo and shower gel consumption (and with it, costs). These aren’t failures in themselves, they’re learning points. The real failure is when we don’t talk about them, and let the same issues repeat over and again out of embarrassment or denial. On the other hand, when curiosity leads the way, every setback can move us forward.

Abating food waste is paramount for the hospitality sectorto achieve sustainability. For so called unavoidable waste some companies choose to use a biodigester.

Among several successes I have get aquinted with two failures.

At one restaurant reprotedly food waste increased after the biodigester was placed because the staff started paying less attention to prevention. In the end, staff though, food could go in de biodigester and generate 'gren gas'; thus, why bother to use less? This failure can be explained looking at individual behavior, and the tenedency we all have to reduce effort.

The second failure was due to lack of proper preparation. The company buying the biodigester did not realized that they will have to 'feed' it regulalry with a specific amount and type of food waste. The company is a training company, therefore the vast majority of its staff is still in training. They faced difficulty in keeping the feeding schedule because the staff could not cope with the extra task. Moroever, when the first gas flowed, it become evident that it could not be safely used in the kitchen, for which it was meant, beacuse (if I understood it well) of incompatibility with the existing system.

This article is highlighting few examples of things we have failed over the past fifteen years of sustainability implementation in the hospitality sector. It's a personal point of view aiming to let everyone think about what we are doing, take a step backward, try to get a better understanding and take action for a more efficient approach.

1. Can you share one (or more) sustainability failure(s) you are aware of or have experienced? The hospitality industry is far behind the EU Green Deal sustainability targets. While tangible elements such as building materials, energy, F&B supply, mobility and others are being addressed in some way, the sustainability transition has faced another major setback: addressing the issue of guest behaviour. It is true that as part of the sustainability transition, more and more potential tourists are expressing a growing concern about environmental and social issues, but their behaviour does not necessarily follow this change in attitude in practice. As the phenomenon of modern tourism can be traced back to the aristocratic travel style of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, many modern travellers still behave as if they are all "modern nobles" whose main expectations are indulgence and unsustainable practices. Consequently, hotels should focus more on how to change guest behaviour towards a more sustainable future. In this way, hotel guests can become more informed and cultured, and by lowering their expectations and behaviour, hotels will be able to provide more rational and sustainable services without losing competitiveness.

Building on the feedback from several classes of Hospitality Management Masters students analysing the CSR reports of several international hotel groups, it seems like sections dedicated to failures in these reports could be beneficial.
Indeed, this practice could: 

• make their report a better reflection of their realities (ie a combination of successes and failures)
• provide evidence of the width and depth of their efforts
• hence build more trust with their stakeholders
• increase their chances to find alternative solutions - by drawing attention to their needs
• share the lessons of these failures with other professionals to accelerate the learning curve at the scale of the industry.

A matrix highlighting the influences of internal and external factors on these failures could be an interesting way to help us all identify where the industry needs to change (eg: processes, standards...) and where support is needed from external stakeholders (eg: regulations, green certifications, technology, suppliers, hotel schools...)

Sustainability shouldn’t sound like a PhD thesis

If I were to write about where, how and whom we failed in sustainability, it would take more space than what is allowed here on Hospitality Net World Panel. So I would encourage you to read from Nicolas Dubrocard’s take on ‘We Failed’: https://www.hospitalitynet.org/opinion/126002668.html

It’s all there.

So I stick to one aspect close to me:

Sustainability fails when it stays in boardrooms and PDFs.
It wins when it’s discussed in kitchens, lobbies, and staff meetings, as well as, architect and designer offices and developers’ meetings—wherever action happens.

I write books on the topic and yes, sustainability fails if it stays black ink on white pages.

And behind this is another failure:

The jargon-heavy, elitist language that alienates key stakeholders—hotel staff, guests, investors, policymakers, and voters…. When sustainability becomes a niche topic reserved for experts or a political blame game (which it has become largely), progress stalls.

But we all know only too well that everyone, every business and every government is operating within planetary boundaries (not an elitist jargon!), even those blatantly denying those boundaries are still bound to those as it’s a matter of physics, chemistry, biology, geology, and so on and not some fantasies; scientists have agreed to nine boundaries, and six are over budget, meaning that we are using up the resources meant for our kids and their kids in turn.

How do we make this more accessible and take it to a more practical level?

No problem: it’s like we’re running a business, but we’re not very good at it, so we keep going to the bank to get a credit line increase; well, here we are running to mother earth for additional resources to maintain our business afloat, but in this case we are not asking the planet for the credit line, we just take what we need now in broad daylight.

I have tried to untangle the jargon for years in class, this is in fact much of my work these past years.

This applies equally to the many acronyms and specialised language. Yes, the world of sustainability is overflowing with acronyms particularly in the field of Reporting & Regulations (e.g. CSRD, SFDR, NFRD, TCFD, ISSB, SEC Climate Rule, GRI, SASB, CDP, DJSI) without considering the hospitality-specific acronyms.

And that points to one of the main challenges of activating sustainability, the fragmented standards with different sectors and geographies having their own jargon.

This is known and there is some work in alignment being done (e.g. universal criteria for hospitality), since at the end of the day, probably only a handful of those are really needed.

Translating planetary boundaries into hotel water, energy or food waste reduction targets isn’t simplification—it’s the vital work of making sustainability actionable. When science turns into actions and choices, change moves from theory to reality.

The following viewpoint was authored by Herve Lampert, Owner of Nay Palad Hideaway in the Philippines, a member of The Long Run.

The entire history of Nay Palad was built on failures and how we learnt from our failures to improve our organization and most especially our Guest Experience. The most important is to craft a clear vision that set the long-term path for everyone, and then to build a Culture where failures should inspire everyone in the Team to learn so we could progress together in achieving our Vision. It is a mindset that should be imbedded in all the leaders in the organization in order to inspire, lead and develop the Team to stay curious and continuously learn from our failures but also to embrace best practices. This is why, when it comes to failures in sustainability, The Long Run has been a tremendous partner as we could share and learn from each other. One of the most interesting example is maybe the fact that we never created a strong Sustainability Committee within the organization (=failure). Now that we have corrected that with our Sustainability Champions, we should be on a more successful path to success.