The World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) will release its benchmarking reports this summer for members of its Hotel Sustainability Basics initiative.
Announced in April this year, the WTTC’s Hotel Sustainability Basics programme highlights 12 actions needed to raise the level of sustainability across the hospitality sector.
The goal is for all hotels to have a minimum level of sustainable and environmentally-friendly practices and then build on those basics year on year.
WTTC invites all hotel operators, owners, associations, and investors around the world to officially support the initiative and work to implement the criteria over the next three years.
There are three steps in the programme.
Step 1. Launch of Hotel Sustainability Basics (April 2022). All members must show robust approaches to measuring and reducing energy and water consumption, waste and carbon emissions within the 12 criteria.
Step 2. Benchmarking (Summer 2022). Of the 12 criteria, hotels need to comply with eight initially, while the others can be committed to and put in place within three years. WTTC invites hotels to participate in the Green Lodging trends Report (GLTR). Each hotel that successfully completes the GLTR study will receive a bespoke benchmarking report for their hotel this summer.
Step 3. Verification. WTTC will launch the verification scheme for individual hotel properties that adopt the Hotel Sustainability Basics Initiative in Q4 of this year.
Julia Simpson, WTTC president and CEO, said: “We are launching the Hotel Sustainability Basics to ensure no hotel, however small, is left behind in the drive to introduce basic sustainability measures within a minimum level [over] the next three years. Sustainability is non-negotiable but not every small hotel has access to the science on how to make a difference. This gives everyone access to a global standard and [enables] consumers to travel with confidence. WTTC wants the hospitality industry to lead by example so that sustainability becomes the basic requirement used to drive change forward for this generation and the next.”
The WTTCs Hotel Sustainability Basics initiative is an internationally recognised programme and have been developed with the help of industry experts including the Sustainable Hotel Alliance.
Wolfgang Neumann, chair, Sustainable Hospitality Alliance said: “The hospitality industry is a force for good and while many companies are taking great strides and leading the way, others are only now taking their first steps. By offering an understanding of the simplest steps hotels can take to become more sustainable, the Hotel Sustainability Basics will help to raise the base level of sustainability across the entire hospitality industry.”
Major hotel groups already signed up include Radisson Hotels Group, Accor, Barceló Hotel Group, Huazhu, including its affiliate Deutsche Hospitality, Indian Hotels Company Limited, Jin Jiang International (Holdings) Co., Ltd. including its affiliates Jin Jiang Hotels, Louvre Hotels Group and Radisson Hotel Group, Meliá Hotels International, and Minor Hotels including NH Hotel Group.
The Sustainable Hotel Basics is available for any hotel or property to adopt and are intended as a first step in a progressive sustainability journey. The idea is they can be built upon and expanded towards achieving “positive hospitality”.
Sustainable Hotel News recently wrote about IHG’s Green Engage system, which aims to get all its hotels to a basic level of sustainability with the idea they build on that towards a more positive sustainable future.
Image from WTTC.