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Lack of Green Standards Causing Mass Confusion At this morning’s controversial and exciting BITAC panel session, industry experts explored how the lack of understanding of what “green” means precludes the ability to develop meaningful hotel industry-specific standards. Monday, October 20, 2008 Glenn Haussman

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With all the talk being bandied about when it comes to going “green,” it’s easy to think the hotel industry has got this all worked out. Truth is, figuring out what “green” even means is such an onerous task, even the brightest industry leaders are stymied with this one.

It’s a challenge affecting all sectors of the hotel industry, from hotel executives to the suppliers that fill up hotels with their products. Just last week, the American Hotel & Lodging Association washed their hands of this complicated problem. The association has decided to leave it up to some as-of-yet unnamed organization to attempt to tackle the issue and will instead issue some basic guidelines.  

Meanwhile, this morning at the Buyer Interactive Trade Alliance and Conference Purchasing and Design West, the sold-out crowd came to grasp just how crazy and complicated this issue really is. Never afraid to tackle the heart of controversial issues, BITAC attendees are forced to rethink conventional thinking to uncover the truth behind prevailing industry schools of thought. It’s a system that breaks down barriers, gets people to see things in a new light and hatches new and innovative ways of thinking.

As for the environmental issue, turns out that while certain hotels around the country are legitimately working on solutions to be more environmentally friendly, other hotels are simply not washing their sheets and calling themselves “green.” That’s because there is no set of basic criteria to create a common language from which a hotel-specific rating system can be developed and executed.

For example, audience participants cast their votes on what the definitions are of both sustainable and biodegradable. And results showed there is no common understanding of these basic “green” terms.

“Our challenge is figuring out what “green” is. Green isn’t sustainable. As an industry we have a lot more to learn. Low-flow toilets aren’t necessarily ‘green’ if you have to flush twice,” said Greg Miller, President and CEO of PM Hospitality, explaining the complexity of settling on common definitions.

“It is obvious everyone is concerned; and it’s just as obvious nobody knows the standards,” said Thomas Ito, principal with the Gensler Group.

Nancy Nee, Corporate Director of Strategic Sourcing with Hilton Hotels Corporation, said it may be necessary to have different standards for different products. “Standards need to be easy to reach,” she said, noting there need to be different standards for basic items such as plastic vs. paper cups, for example.

Making the problem even more complicated is that neither consumers nor hotel industry professionals have a clue what “green” means. It’s not a disparaging remark; it’s more of a reality check that - even with all the brouhaha behind this trend - the industry simply has no firm basis from which to judge what constitutes a “green” hotel.

But that hasn’t stopped many properties from promoting themselves as “green”.  And since there is no governing body for hotel industry-specific standards, are they technically wrong to be promoting themselves as such?

At this morning’s discussion, an astounding 73 percent of attendees said there is no adequate understanding for consumers to know what constitutes a “green” hotel. Just one percent was convinced there is.

When asked if there was an adequate understanding of what constitutes “green hotel’ by hotel industry pros, 67 percent said “no way”, while 28 percent said “perhaps.” Only two percent thought there was an adequate definition here.

“The issue is even more complicated, because there are various ‘shades of green’. There are issues such as best practices vs. transformational practices to consider,” said Ito. He said any system of standards would have to be tiered.

Another problem here is that old buildings and new buildings need a different approach.
 
So far the U.S. Green Building Council has been taking the initiative with its LEED certification. But that system falls short of critical hotel industry criteria, leaving blank holes for hotels trying to achieve certification, but cannot because of the limitation of the system.

“LEED may not be well-matched to the hotel industry, because there are a number of issues more relevant to commerce and industry than to hotels specifically,” said Ray Burger, President of Pineapple Hospitality. “LEED is working on new standard to be released next year that should more relevant for hotels.”

Attendees were also asked the greatest challenge in creating a governing green body in the hotel industry. Choices were “ (a) Figuring out what ‘green’ really means”, “(b) Agreeing on a set of standards”, “(c) Getting widespread industry support, “(d) All of the above”, and “(e) None of the above”. Interestingly, 74 percent chose “All of the above”, while 16 percent said “Agreeing on a set of standards”. Five percent votes that “Figuring out what ‘green’ really means” was most important. Three percent selected “None of the above”.

Finally, James Simkins, Principal of MTM Luxury Lodging, said the hotel industry still needs to accurately determine if the travel-buying public is even interested in this issue. “There needs to be a marketing element tied to an education element. If we don’t fully explain this issue to guests we’ll never know if they’ll pay for it. We have to find out how much the public values green efforts,’ said Simkins.