Oleksandr Poborskyy, associate, lead hotels and hospitality in UK for Cundall, a consultancy delivering sustainable engineering and design solutions across the built environment, looks at four different sustainable building certifications for the hotel industry and how they offer an opportunity for a sustainable, low carbon built environment.
“According to the World Green Building Council, buildings are responsible for nearly 40 per cent of global carbon emissions and hotels and the hospitality sector contribute a significant sum of this given the 24/7 operation, high turnover of guests and the need to provide those guests with high quality facilities.
“Given the high amount of carbon emissions associated with buildings, it is important for the hotel sector to prioritise sustainable design from the outset. This encompasses how hotel buildings are designed, constructed, and maintained. The standards are becoming essential benchmarks for developers, architects and operators alike.
“The financial drive to decarbonise hotels is coming from stricter environmental legislation, as well as global hotel brands and investors expecting hotels to meet ESG requirements. This coupled with guests, who are looking for new experiences and to travel responsibly. This year Booking.com’s 10th annual survey found 93 per cent of global travellers say they want to make more sustainable travel choices and, to some extent, have done so.
“This has led to a growing number of hotel brands looking to acquire environmental standard certifications such as LEED, BREEAM, Passivhaus and the UK Net Zero Carbon Standard.
“While the certification’s influence in the commercial office sector is widely acknowledged, little is discussed about how they impact the current landscape of hotel developments. From my experience working with several hospitality brands and some hotel projects globally, below I have summarised how these certifications impact the hospitality industry.”
LEED
“Perhaps the most internationally recognised building standard is LEED. It was created in the 1990s, as a holistic system to reduce environmental impact, save resources, protect human health, reduce carbon emissions and address climate change.
“As of March this year there are 4,108 LEED‐certified and registered lodging and hotel projects, which equates to 140 million sqm of built spaces.
“LEED for Operations and Maintenance (O&M) certification offers existing hotel buildings an opportunity to improve their operations as it also captures key criteria such as energy, water use, management and wellbeing.
“LEED is increasingly used for international hotel brands seeking consistency across borders. This however, brings challenges, as a one-size-fits-all approach might not be suitable in some regions due to their environmental and infrastructure restraints. BREEAM, on the other hand, changes the weight of credits to adapt to local environmental conditions and infrastructure. For example, you may lose LEED credits if the development is not connected to good public transportation, however, several countries are not equipped with the public transportation infrastructure needed.
“That said, a user-friendly approach, worldwide support and the standard recognition among many international hotel brands and investors puts LEED in the driving seat when it comes to hotel building certification. Availability of LEED assessors is another significant factor, should a brand decide to explore a new and remote region/country, finding local professional support accustomed with LEED requirements tends to be easier compared to other certifications.”
BREEAM
“BREEAM (Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method) is a green building certification system used across several sectors. It launched in the UK 30 years ago and internationally 15 years back.
“We come across the BREEAM requirements on many projects in the UK as the go-to framework due to its integration with local planning regulations and its flexibility in aligning with European environmental goals.
“Internationally, BREEAM targets account for specific regional environmental characteristics, which are positively recognised by industry peers.
“BREEAM uses a points-based system, with the final score determining the BREEAM rating from Pass, Good, Very Good, Excellent and Outstanding. BREEAM evaluates hotels across a broad range of categories and criteria including energy use, water conservation, health and wellbeing of occupants, pollution, materials, management practices and even innovation.
“BREEAM In-Use is a certification scheme to help assess and improve performance of existing buildings. Given that 80 per cent of the buildings that will be in use in 2050 currently exist, this certification has a significant role to play in retrofitting hotels. The certification looks at the management policies and practices related to the operation, energy and water use, carbon footprint and waste generation. The existing building certification lasts for three years and then there is ongoing assessment, which means hotel owners and operators need to have a long term strategy and commitment in place to continue with any improvements required.”
Sustainable Hotel News looked at BREEAM in a piece about hotel certifications below.
The Passivhaus standard
“The Passivhaus standard was created in Germany by a team of building physics specialists in the 1980s. The idea was to better control indoor environments with less reliance on energy intensive systems. The Passivhaus solution focuses on three performance aspects: energy efficiency, thermal comfort, and air quality.
“To achieve this, it invests in the envelope and ventilation systems, prioritising five key design and construction principles: Insulation, airtightness (i.e. low air permeability), thermal bridging (sealing off a building to stop external temperatures to impact internal conditions), high performance windows, (triple glazed windows), mechanical ventilation (to ensure air quality is maintained for occupants).
“The primary goal is to control interaction between the indoor and outdoor environments, which is done by minimising heat losses from the building through the building envelope, using already occurring heat sources such as solar and internal heat gains (people, lights, equipment); rejecting unwanted thermal energy, such as excess solar in summer; ensuring constant and controlled ventilation for healthy indoor air quality.
“A major reason for the success of Passivhaus buildings is the strict quality assurance measures captured by Passivhaus designer, certified key components (windows, ventilation units, etc.) and a certifier who validates the process and final product.
“Worldwide, there are already Passivhaus certified hotels, such as Hilton’s Hotel Marcel in US and Bruck Passive House in Germany. It was recently announced that construction has began on what could become the UK’s first Passivhaus hotel. It will be a remarkable achievement when the development gets completed.”
UK Net Zero Carbon Buildings Standard
“Finally, the UK Net Zero Carbon Buildings Standard was launched in September 2024 to provide a framework, limits and targets across many sectors including hotels.
“Many leading organisations in the UK built environment joined forces to lead this initiative, mapping out the route to the UK’s climate targets. The standard is applicable to both existing and new buildings prioritising the reuse of existing buildings and assets. The combination of the two workstream (bottom-up benchmark and modelling with top-down carbon “budgets” approach) create Net Zero Carbon limits which each sector and building need to align to be claimed Net Zero Carbon certified.
“I was part of the sector group that created the Standard for the hotels and hospitality sector. In creating the Standard, we put a lot emphasis on reducing operational energy and carbon through optimising building fabric and systems. It sets ambitious reporting criteria for the operational energy and carbon using energy use intensity (EUI) and carbon emissions intensity metrics respectively.
“As it stands, the Standard is a Pilot version, there is still a need for input from the industry, and data, to make it a more usable standard.
“A few elements of the Standard that could prove challenging for the sector include: addressing energy-intensive facilities like swimming pools/spas. Currently the Standard only excludes conferences and laundry areas. The Standard also requires photovoltaic panels on the roof. However, luxury hotels tend to use the roof space for additional guest amenities, like restaurants, bars or viewing points.
“That said, the Standard sets some good ambitions like in addition to energy and carbon limits and targets, it requires the building to be fossil free (unlike the other three certifications), consider onsite renewables, use modern refrigerant type and report heating and cooling usage. These requirements are all achievable, our recent five-star hotel development has successfully applied these principles.
“Finally, as opposed to many others, the conformity with this standard can only be assessed and verified for buildings whose construction has been completed and are fully in-use.”
Which sustainable building certifications to choose?
“The hospitality industry is evolving and increasingly seeking to reduce its environmental impact. Building certifications is an accredited way to show investors, developers, operators and guests the performance of their assets or accommodation they are planning to stay in.
“Selecting the right standards is important, as although they appear to be similar, they have different criteria and metrics. Some will look at the broader ESG requirements with others more focus on the environmental performance and alignment with Net Zero Carbon targets.
“Despite the momentum, there are obstacles to wider adoption of the standards, such as capex costs. However, these are often offset over time through lower operating costs and opportunity to improve the financing through ESG-linked loans and green bonds. Equally, having the right professional support in the region is another key factor. For example, does your team have enough knowledge and understanding of the requirements and local characteristics?
“Achieving certification in existing hotel buildings can be challenging, especially in heritage or listed buildings. The LEED, BREEAM In-USE and UK NZC Building Standards recognise and adapt the requirement to suit retrofitting and decarbonising of these buildings.
“Having clear understanding from the operator, developer and investor on the key drives for what they want to achieve is another factor. As previously suggested one size fits all may not be suitable for every hotel building.
“Certifications offer the hotel and hospitality sector a fantastic opportunity to improve environmental impacts associated with their operation, ensure that both guest and staff are provided with comfortable spaces and memorable experiences.
“The most successful stories come from us talking and sharing our experiences with each other. That is the way when we can create the best environmentally friendly product, offer guests everlasting experience and meet the sector’s growing expectations.”
Oleksandr Poborskyy is associate, lead hotels and hospitality in UK for Cundall, a global, multi-disciplinary consultancy delivering sustainable engineering and design solutions across the built environment. Cundall operates across 29 locations with more than 1300 engineers and designers. Within the hotel and hospitality sector the company has a diverse experience from new build and refurbished hotels to whole portfolio consultancy and advice.
The views expressed in this opinion piece are based on the observations, experience and belief of the individual author and do not represent the views or opinions of Sustainable Hotel News.
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