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The Case for Going Green Getting into sustainability is a great way to engender loyalty among transient travelers, appeal to meeting planners, and save money. Wednesday, November 19, 2008 Patrice A Kelly

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Yesterday at Hotel Interactive we discussed the AH&LAs decision to issue guidelines on going green. But what about getting certified as green? Here’s why you might want to consider partnering with an emerging certification organization.

Tomorrow we’ll look at why your property should be a good corporate citizen and give you some action steps.  Then on Friday we’ll focus on how the Canadian Hotel Association has handled this game-changing issue.

Let’s face it –– going green is quickly becoming a business reality. Since the 2006 film, “An Inconvenient Truth,” the green movement has accelerated faster than at any time since the movement fist began during the 1970s.
 
For hoteliers, the reality is that going green should be both about doing what’s right for the environment and the community, as well as creating an opportunity to save money over the long term. Truth is, lodging is the fourth most intensive energy user in the United States commercial sector, and it’s become increasingly important for the industry to place resource conservation and sustainability at the top of its list of priorities.

But green is not just the symbol of the environmental movement, it’s also the color of money. As many industries are learning, environmentally sound practices can also attract new business and generate more profits. More travel consumers — business and pleasure alike — are using green as their guide when choosing a hotel.

According to a 2007 travelhorizons(TM) survey by the Travel Industry Association (TIA) and Ypartnership, 54 percent of respondents would be more likely to patronize environmentally responsible hotels or resorts. Moreover, 56 percent said they might be willing to pay higher rates to use suppliers who demonstrate environmental responsibility.

A 2008 survey by Deloitte says U.S. business travelers are reducing their personal environmental impact, and have specific expectations about environmental practices hotels should be adopting today. Thirty-four percent “seek out hotels that are environmentally friendly,” and 38 percent have researched green lodging facilities either online or by asking friends and relatives.

While these surveys show intent, they do not irrefutably prove that customers are in fact making decisions to stay based on a hotel’s environmental stewardship. But it does indicate this will become a reality in the future.

Thus far, the meetings industry has made the biggest commitment in going green, and industry organizations are trying to lead by example. According to Tamara Kennedy Hill, Executive Director of the Green Meetings Industry Council, its meeting planner membership is actively looking for green venues for their events.

“The easiest, of course, is if a property already has third-party certification like Green Seal in place, because those types of certifications are industry-accepted and it’s less work for the planner to understand when someone says they are green what that actually means,” she says.

The Green Meetings Industry Council (www.greenmeetings.info) is a nonprofit, membership-based organization that provides education and a networking community for meeting planners, hotels and destinations about green meeting practices. In an industry that has no specific set of environmental standards, the process of creating a green meeting is a kind of partnering effort between the organization and the venue.

“Without that third-party verification, it’s nice for the hotel if the planner has in their RFP that the planner expects them to have green practices,” says Hill. “A lot of planners are putting in more specifications of what that looks like and evaluating it. It’s very nice if a hotel can present not just that they’re green but perhaps a checklist, their documentation of what they’re doing, say, with energy efficiency, what they’re doing with recycling, so that they can address this upfront and the meeting planner has to do less guessing.”

Hill says that, although requirements will vary from organization to organization, there are a few general minimum requirements for most any meeting. “For many organizations the minimum is a towel and sheet reuse program. The next minimum would be recycling in place and maybe making it more visible, not just behind the scenes, some way it can be checked and audited. I know more planners are moving towards not just having it in the site selections checklist and the RFP, but also having those contractual agreements, so that afterwards they would get a report to make the hotels more accountable.”

A good place to learn what meeting planners look for is the recently released recommended guidelines produced by the Convention Industry Council www.conventionindustry.org. Meeting Professionals International has also posted its “How Green Are You?” guide online www.mpiweb.org.


Standards and Certification
Since 1995, Green Seal has partnered with the lodging industry to promote environmentally responsible products and practices within lodging properties. Green Seal's campaign to inform the 48,000 U.S. hotels and motels focuses on how environmental efforts both improve the bottom line and benefit the environment. The organization certifies lodging properties that meet its environmental standard, and supports government programs to identify green hotels www.greenseal.org/greeninglodge.htm.

“First, [a hotel would] take a look at the standards on our website, use the standards as a guideline to increase sustainable activities in their hotel,” says Linda Chipperfield, vice president of marketing and outreach for Green Seal. “They can then fill out the preliminary application online and then we have checklists and guides for the activities and changes needed to achieve certification.”

Once the hotel has implemented its sustainability programming, it sends in documentation of its plans and guidelines for review. After reviewing the documentation, Green Seal schedules a site visit to make sure the activities, including purchasing, are going according to standard. Once the property passes inspection, it receives a license to use the Green Seal in its marketing and marketing materials for one year. Each year there is a renewal process, including a re-inspection and fee. Certification is currently granted on an individual property basis, although some major lodging corporations are investigating certification for entire flags.

Other organizations that offer environmental certification for hotels are the US Green Building Council’s LEED program for new construction www.usgbc.org and Green Hotel Certification for US and Caribbean hotels www.greenhotelcertification.com.

As we mentioned earlier, the USGBC will be introducing sector-specific criteria in June 2009.