Ms. Bhattacharyya

Eco-Friendly Practices

An Overview of Sustainability Focused Company‐University Partnerships

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

Market turmoil, the Gulf Oil Spill, and increasing public scrutiny of irresponsible land use planning all have been issues forcing travelers and hospitality professionals alike to think hard on how their purchasing dollars are impacting the environment and others. As a result, the need for performance based reporting has never been in greater demand. To meet this need, hospitality professionals and other travel service providers are grappling to define what social, economic and environmental responsibility means to their customers and their bottom line. I’ve focused this article on three key trends that are helping to catalyze the formation of sustainability focused company- college partnerships in the last few years. By also highlighting a few of the program approaches and course topics, I hope that property and brand managers can identify a program specialized enough to help your employees understand and incorporate environmentally and socially responsible business practices into your operations.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act

As part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act launched in February of 2009, many state level economic development agencies were awarded green job training funds to support the growth of green construction and facility management industries. A requirement for receiving support through these programs was to develop apprenticeship curricula that would help transition students into careers where environmental engineering and construction skills are needed. Many technical colleges and workforce centers have been developing programs to meet this requirement. Below are a few examples of programs that were developed with direct or indirect support from Act or other private sector matching funds.

The Asian American Civic Association in Boston has developed a Building and Energy Efficient Maintenance Skills (BEEMS) Program and the Energy Efficient Technician Apprenticeship Program (EETAP). EETAP’s course work is based on the requirements of the Building Maintenance Institute’s for Building Analyst Certified Professionals. Upon completion of the BEEMS and EETAP courses, students have a fundamental understanding of cleaning, plumbing, carpentry, electrical work, and basic computer skills, in addition to energy auditing and shell weatherization.

The Southern California Green Jobs Education Initiative is a partnership between Southern California Edison (a regulated utility company serving Southern California) and over ten Southern California Community Colleges to provide skills training in the following fields: renewable energy system installation, maintenance and operation of green transportation technologies, water conservation /wastewater management, and sustainability planning/ environmental compliance monitoring. By helping the community colleges develop and implement these new curricula, SCE is also helping to build an employee pool of professional who can manage on-site environmental systems and reduce SCE client carbon and water footprints.

The Los Angeles Community College District (LACCD) is the largest community college system in the country and includes nine college campuses located across Los Angeles area. With support from the Act, the District has partnered with the City of Los Angles’ Green Business Program to provide career transition and employment opportunities between the Districts new Green Technology Program and hotels and restaurants that have signed the City’s Green Business Program Pledge. Course topics being proposed include: certified energy management/ auditing certification, waste water management certification, watershed bioengineered remediation, and a variety of renewable energy system certifications.

When looking for a program in your state or community similar to any of the ones listed above, it would be best to contact your local community/technical college, university extension office, or workforce investment center for more detail regarding energy and water efficiency vocational courses available in your region.

Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill, Remediation, and Affects on Human Health

Repercussions from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill will affect both the food and tourism industries of the eastern coastal United States for generations to come. While many repartitions are being made to businesses operating in states adjacent to the Gulf, it has been difficult for many hotel owners and government officials to understand how to mitigate their loss of revenue due to visitor perceptions of contamination. There may be also be long term residual impacts from both the spilled oil and the remediation chemicals which were used, that are still not fully understood. These issues can be of special concern for hospitality and food service providers whose services rely on clean shorelines and seafood products from the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico. Below are a few initiatives by colleges and the private sector which are working to educate the public and hospitality professional on the environmental and human health issues now being faced by Atlantic and Gulf communities.

In 2006 the University Of Florida, Levin College of Law examined how federal, state, and local regulatory policy defined water- dependent usage for costal area land use. This research included the various state definitions and allowances by hotels and restaurants. Immediately following the spill in 2010, college faculty formed a working group to examine regulatory structures and policies affecting compensation measures currently being undertaken by British Petroleum (BP) and the Gulf states. With their Annual Public Interest Environmental Conference scheduled for February in 2011, the schools conference: It’s Not Easy Being Green: Our Energy Future will be an opportune forum for hotel brand legal counsel, as well as shore front properties to learn more about their legal rights in the wake of the spill, and how renovations to existing properties can help reduce our national dependence on oil.

State based hospitality and restaurant associations, in partnership with the convention and visitors bureau’s and land grant universities in Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas are all working as the behest of their members to inform and educate the public concerning coastal health and cleanliness during the holiday season. Besides these extensive communication and monitoring efforts, each association also has ongoing educational partnerships with local technical schools and the National Restaurant Association’s ServSafe training program. ServSafe training can provide your managers and front line team with the current information concerning food handling, cooking and disposal as well an understanding of updates to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Food Code. The FDA also manages the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill Update webpage that provides a wealth of information concerning safe seafood species and potential contamination sources, as well as fishery opening and closure information.

If you are a hospitality provider located along the Atlantic or Gulf shore and you are looking for additional information regarding efforts in your community to contain the spill and cope with contaminated natural resources in your region; the website Restorethegulf.gov is a federal site that lists both federal and state resources available to your property and community to overcome adverse economic, environmental or medical issues resulting from oil contamination.

Mainstreaming of Sustainable Tourism Development and Management Principles

Many graduate schools and ongoing professional development programs catering to the hospitality and travel sectors are using the internet to re-establish a professional online community in which questions on sustainability are being discussed and standards are being developed. In most cases, these forums start as online courses that, in turn, evolve into regional or sector specific workgroups. An extensive listing of educational institutions in the US who are leading this effort can be found on the websites of the EPA Region 2: Hospitality: Green Curricula or The International Ecotourism Society’s University Consortium. By taking the experiences of travel and hospitality professionals from across the country, these schools are broadening the conversation on what it means to be environmentally, socially, and economically responsible in the tourism industry within the US as well as abroad. In some cases, instructors are also opening the conversation up to hospitality supplier industries and public administration students as well. In expanding the conversation to include other industries that support the hospitality and travel sectors, a clearer picture can be drawn for travelers and professionals alike concerning the full impacts of hospitality and travel services.

As facility and brand managers part of your responsibility is to keep two steps ahead of the curve, and I hope that some of the partnerships I’ve listed can help you and your employees take two more and lead the industry in adopting environmentally responsible and more sustainable business practices.

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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