Multiple lodging companies told BTN that the number of
corporate travel buyer requests for hotel sustainability information has soared
in the past year. A few years ago, Marriott International had requests from
about 20 customers for their carbon footprint with the hotel operator, said
Marriott VP of sustainability and supplier diversity Denise Naguib. By 2020, it
was at 100. “In the last year, during the pandemic when no one was traveling,
that number has almost tripled,” she said.
Hilton Worldwide and IHG Hotels & Resorts also reported
an uptick in requests from corporations for sustainability information, and
what is asked for depends on where their clients are on their own
sustainability paths. Questions range from what their carbon footprint is for
stays to how a hotel reduces its food waste to corporate social responsibility
practices, including diversity, modern slavery and anti-human trafficking
efforts.
Most queries, though, still focus on the E aspect of
ESG—environment, social and governance, said IHG VP of global corporate
responsibility Catherine Dolton. “But we are starting to get that wider focus
on the S of ESG now as well.”
Some buyers also want to know how to incentivize their
travelers to be greener. “A lot of corporations today aren’t necessarily
mandating their travelers stay with greener hotels, but they want to encourage
that behavior,” Dolton said.
Marriott’s Naguib agreed, adding that buyers have asked how
to flag hotels that have certifications or have carbon and water data in their
booking tools. “Some are force-ranking those hotels to the top of the list,
ahead of price,” she said.
Lack of Global Standard Is a Challenge
Buyers BTN spoke with confirmed their sustainability needs
vary, but one item rang clear: The biggest challenge is the lack of an industry
standard on what a “green” hotel really means. There are dozens of green hotel
labels around the globe, but all measure different elements of a hotel’s
operations.
Further, “it is hard to ask hotels to come up with metrics,”
said Hogan Lovell global travel manager David McDonald. “I’m not sure I would
believe them. I don’t think there would be impropriety, but we need an agnostic
industry resource. An equivalent of ISO certifications … an independent body
solely tasked with the measurement of the industry as a whole, published
yearly, and providing a ranking score.”
In terms of making buying decisions, “it makes it difficult
because there isn’t a set of standards that we can work to that would enable us
to differentiate one [hotel] from another,” said PwC global business services
and travel leader Mark Avery, whose company announced last year that as a firm,
they were moving to net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.
To compensate for a lack of a standard, Avery first asks
hotels if they participate in the Hotel Carbon Measurement Initiative, a free
tool for hotels to calculate the carbon footprint per occupied room on a daily
basis and on the area of meeting space on an hourly basis. It was created in
2012 by the Sustainable Hospitality Alliance (formerly the International
Tourism Partnership) and the World Travel & Tourism Council in
collaboration with 23 leading global hospitality companies. Its counterpart is
the Hotel Water Measurement Initiative, used to calculate water usage in a
hotel.
About 25,000 hotels globally use HCMI and about 18,000 use
HWMI, according to the SHA website. Per STR, there are 216,724 hotels around
the world, defined as having 10 or more rooms, being open to the public and
generating nightly income. That leaves a lot of properties not using these
measurements.
Avery covers the UK region for PwC. He uses the UK
Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs hotel emission factors, but
he said they cover only about 30 markets. “We’ve chosen to estimate other
territories based on the various factors of the countries they have put a
multiplier on so we can capture and report our Scope 3 emissions,” he said.
This involves looking at the DEFRA multipliers and associating the type of
location, typical climate, the kind of facilities the hotel has, and then
estimating a multiplier per room night per country.
In addition, Avery furnishes key providers with information
on PwC’s expectations and asks them to sign on to that level of provision and
have science-based targets set. “We look for them to be on the journey toward a
sustainable future and potentially net zero,” he said. “In order to do that,
they need to be measuring.”
Potential Solutions
Corporate lodging platform HRS in March introduced its Green
Stay Initiative, which uses a proprietary formula for calculating a hotel’s
sustainability score based on its energy consumption, water use and waste
disposal—three key elements buyers look for and that are measurable.
When the company started its project, it faced the same
roadblock: the lack of an industry standard. “We found that large hotel groups
had sustainability programs in place, but they were very different,” said HRS
chief product officer and Green Stay Initiative team leader Martin Biermann.
“At most, they were following the greenhouse gas protocols from a scoping point
of view and what needed to be measured.”
HRS looked at approximately 200 bodies and found that each
basically created its own set of criteria or action plans they recommended to
hotels. The most prominent one was the Global Sustainable Tourism Council,
which has a comprehensive set of action plans for businesses in the travel
industry, Biermann said. HRS also integrated the HCMI and HWMI into its
calculation, along with EarthCheck, Green Key and unnamed others.
Some hotel companies countered that there are industry
standards, at least for a few sustainability measurements, and Hilton’s newly
released 2020 ESG report indicates the industry is working with the World
Wildlife Fund to develop a standardized waste measurement methodology.
The major hotel companies BTN spoke with all use the HCMI
and HWMI tools to help provide an individual hotel’s footprint, and it is a
brand standard—for all properties, managed and franchised—to provide that
information. Hyatt Hotels Corp. added in a statement that along with industry
peers, it participated in coordinated benchmarking through the Cornell
Hospitality Sustainability Benchmarking Index. But again, each company uses
additional differing factors when giving an overall picture of a property’s
sustainability.
Aside from producing a carbon and water footprint using HCMI
and HWMI, Naguib said Marriott also factors in waste practices and “hundreds of
data points” for its sustainability information. The company also currently
takes into consideration seven certifying bodies, including green building
certification programs as well as green hotel certifications that meet GSTC recognition.
Hilton Worldwide has LightStay, its proprietary system that
measures the company’s environmental and social impact around the world, “from
energy and water use to volunteer hours,” said Hilton VP of corporate
responsibility Kate Mikesell. There’s also Hilton’s Meeting Impact Calculator,
which based on information about a particular event, can determine the
environmental footprint of that event.
Further, “all of our hotels are certified with ISO quality
management, environmental management and energy management standards,” Mikesell
said, adding that Hilton’s LightStay also achieved GSTC status.
IHG, which earlier this year announced its 10-year Journey
to Tomorrow sustainability plan, has a system called IHG Green Engage, which
also is a brand standard for hotels to measure and monitor utility consumption,
Dolton said. She added that the company has its own certification for four
sustainability levels. “More widely you have
questionnaires like the Carbon Disclosure Project, and various methodologies
for contrasting and comparing the sustainability of hotels. There is some
standardization out there, but I do think we are seeing a greater call from
customers for something that is a bit more straightforward.”
These methods are the foundation for reporting to clients
and don’t even begin to capture all that the companies do on the corporate
level for their own sustainability goals.
Sourcing Implications
A majority of hotel companies’ sustainability requests come
through the Global Business Travel Association request-for-proposal format,
which includes 20 sustainability-related questions. But the questions likely
could use an update as they don’t cover everything that buyers now look for.
“Companies are really focused on more things like renewable energy,” Naguib
said. “It is not one of the standardized questions, but now a lot of customers
are asking about it.”
Still, regarding the GBTA questions, “[the hotels] have to
self-certify,” McDonald said. “There is no one who says, ‘show me your
certification.’ There is no single standard in calculating this, you have to
take it on face value.”
Other buyers go directly to their national sales managers,
while some come through corporate sustainability departments. What is clear is
that buyers will increasingly ask for this information from hotel partners,
especially as more corporations are announcing their own sustainability goals.
When next sourcing hotels, “we will want documentation to
prove that a property or chain has a sustainability program, how they are
measuring it, and do they have a net zero program and how is that being met,”
said one buyer whose company has announced a net zero target.
Will the need to meet internal sustainability goals impact
which hotels make it into corporate travel programs?
Marriott’s Naguib said she is starting to see some more
mature programs use their collected sustainability data for decision making,
but buyers aren’t necessarily there, yet.
“The short answer is yes, but it will take time,” Avery
said. “At the moment it’s not appropriate to say we would not put a hotel in
just because it didn’t have sustainability information. Possibly, if there was
something next door. But sometimes we are in locations where we don’t have a
choice. You have to be realistic.”
For Toyota North America travel services manager Rebecca
Jeffries, it will depend on her travelers. “If it’s something that 10 percent
to 15 percent of my travelers have an interest in, it probably won’t make a
huge difference in my sourcing,” she said. “But if 85 percent of my travelers
are interested in it, then yes it will.”