Ms. Bhattacharyya

Eco-Friendly Practices

Helping Your Hotel Green Your Community

By Rani Bhattacharyya, Sustainable Hospitality & Tourism Consultant, Bhattacharyya Consulting, Inc.

With the growing demand in the hospitality market for sincere and transparent reporting of environmental commitments being made by service providers, it would be wise for managers and property owners to consider and benefit from the monitoring and reporting efforts being made by your local city, county and state officials. When you consider participating in one of these government managed programs it’s important to keep in mind that they have been developed from a need to aggregate data not only for internal forecasting and development, but also to provide more visibility of these sustainability efforts to prospective visitors and businesses.

In his book titled Rise of the Creative Class, Richard Florida puts it succinctly by stating that: creative professionals are knowledge-based workers and include those working in healthcare, business and finance, the legal sector, and education. They “draw on complex bodies of knowledge to solve specific problems” using higher degrees of education to do so (2002). He also goes onto explain that these creative professionals choose to re-locate, live and work in communities where there is a proven balance between diverse modes of living, recreation and access to hi-tech technology. With these recommendations in mind, many community leaders have taken up the responsibility to show how sustainable and balanced their communities really are. Green business programs are the key to making this happen.

Community Benchmarking Programs

With SustainLane’s benchmarking efforts in 2005 of the fifty most populated U.S. cities, local government officials had their first taste of how their community planning and developmental efforts could be evaluated externally for performance using environmental and economic impact metrics. Since then, many officials have undertaken the task to identify means by which they can help to report on their communities continuing improvements. These self reporting projects range from Green Maps (developed by community members to highlight environmental, cultural and social destinations within their cities) all the way up to the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives’ (ICLEI) new STAR Community Index program. ICLEI’s program once adopted by a community helps officials develop sustainability goals and then benchmark and measure these goals using their patented Clean Air and Climate Protection software. What is important to note in these programs is the concerted effort being made by local government agencies to develop metrics by which they can measure and monitor the sustainable development of their communities.

In reaching out to local companies, green business programs are helping to incentivize this monitoring and evaluation process within the private sector. Some of these programs offer marketing packages, while others have teamed up with local utilities providers to provide discounted services to retro –fit or conduct environmental audits at existing properties. Other programs also offer expedited permitting processes, or subsides for participating in environmental recognition programs like Green Seal, USGBC, or EPA’s facility EnergyStar program. The incentive package that is put together by each community varies with the needs of their resident businesses, departmental administrative capacity, and willingness to partner with other agencies that have overlapping jurisdictions.

Green businesses in general, can support cities in achieving major environmental and economic objectives by helping to:

• Shrink your city’s greenhouse gas emissions and environmental footprint
• Conserve water and improve water quality
• Reduce solid and hazardous waste
• Reduce toxic exposure and improve health for workers, residents, visitors
• Develop locally-based green jobs
• Support green building programs, attract green conventions and green tourism
• Reduce long-term infrastructure investment needs (power, water, waste, transport), and
• Preserve your city’s quality of life for future generations.

Specific Impacts from the Hospitality Industry

Since hotels and restaurants are the “front line” when it comes to tourists and other guests experiencing a destination for the first time, having a community that is actively developing or running a green business program can be a significant selling point for your facility. Tools like Green Maps are becoming more and more popular for tourists seeking leisure services due to their easy integration with hand held devices like iPhones, Blackberries and other navigational aids. Registering or qualifying to be tagged within these online maps through your local convention and visitor’s bureau or chamber of commerce can increase your properties visibility to those travelers hoping to make last minute reservations on the fly. Participating in these locally based programs can also increase local referrals to your property as well as diversify your supply chain alternatives and leisure service referral options for your guests.

Supporting your community based sustainability reporting efforts should also be important to the lodging and food service providers because:

• The average hotel purchases more products in one week than 100 families will purchase in one year
• All properties function as microcosm of built environment (purchasing, energy, water, emissions)
• Service delivery impacts several major environmental issues – energy/climate, water, waste, toxics, etc.
• Hotels implementing a minimum number of environmental measures can reduce their GHGs by 55%.
• The average total impact of a restaurant implementing basic environmental measures can reduce their GHG output by 75%.
• The most significant environmental impact from food services is food itself due resources expended to grow, transport, store, and prepare items for guests.

As one of the more publicly visible industries, reducing these factors could benefit your standing within local business circles. Participation in your local green business program actively states that you support sustainable development of your community and are concerned about the quality of life and environment that residents hope to achieve.

What Hotels Can Do as Members of Green Business Programs

There are a few ways in which you can engage with your local green business program. If one of the relationships described below is not a part of your communities program, it still could be proposed as an innovative addition to their current efforts. Attract green guests and business by implementing environmental practices in-house and through your supply chains. Promoting these efforts through participating in national recognition programs, or brand – based environmental programs will appeal to both business and leisure travelers seeking to reduce their own carbon footprints. A second option could be to partner with higher education to re-tool the industry. Some business programs include a vocational training component either in hospitality management or a related field. Many of these programs require case studies on service delivery and need local sponsors to host researchers or interns enrolled in the vocational programs. By opting to host these students, you can gain a deeper insight into your facility’s operations at a relatively low price. Additionally, once the research or case study is published, you can use these findings as part of your marketing material or as a benchmark for further improvements. A third option that many programs try to encourage in their partnerships is for you to become an environmental champion and mentor. By becoming a champion for your local green business program, the strides you make in adopting environmentally responsible practices can be used as examples for local businesses as well as within your chain and industry as a whole.

While each of these partnership options requires a bit of time and effort, they can greatly increase your properties visibility as well as your community’s vitality. It is this synergy that both community and business leaders would like to achieve to ensure continued growth. Having such a dynamic partnership would be irresistible to potential residents and companies, don’t you think?

Rani Bhattacharyya conducts research and analysis in the hospitality and tourism sectors that includes comparative studies of hospitality and tourism sustainability criteria, green business program criteria, and programs focused on local, regional, state and global sustainability efforts. Through her work Ms. Bhattacharyya is also studying how company and community performance benchmarking can be integrated into long-term city, and community development planning processes. Ms. Bhattacharyya can be contacted at 202-436-0800 or rani.a.bhattacharyya@gmail.com Extended Bio...

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