It feels as if we are on the home run to the holidays and we thought we'd give you a little surprise piece... just make sure you have joined our LinkedIn community as we will be posting an alternative to the trends pieces you might see around. Instead we have asked key players across the sector: "What could the industry have done better in 2024?" Their responses are a great read so don't miss out.
Our event Sustainability Bites: Circularity in Action saw industry leaders discussing how hotels can embrace circularity – and why they need to start doing so. It's a big read so worth a sit down with a mince pie. Link at the bottom of the newsletter.
These events bring together great minds in a relaxed environment and we enjoy sharing the best thoughts about crucial industry issues. We look forward to bringing more Sustainability Bites roundtables and other events to you next year. If you'd like to sponsor any of our events please get in touch.
We have two Q&As for you on this newsletter – a conversation with Glenn Mandziuk, CEO World Sustainable Hospitality Alliance and Natalie Campbell, CEO Belu, the sustainable water brand, which gives its profits to WaterAid. You can find both of these discussions below.
And lots more news in case you missed anything.
Until next year,
Felicity Cousins,
Editor, Sustainable Hotel News
Image: The Social Hub
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Join our LinkedIn community and you'll find news, events and features to keep the conversations flowing. And our end of year piece on "What the industry could have done better" will be posted there soon. Lots of brilliant minds contributed to this one. Don't miss it!
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The World Sustainable Hospitality Alliance has a mission to accelerate the path to net positive hospitality through strategic industry leadership and collaboration. It aims to share resources and education opportunities and to bring together the industry “in a harmonisation of metrics and regenerative solutions.”
The Alliance and its hospitality members represent more than 7 million rooms and include 32 global hotel companies with a reach of more than 55,000 properties. Its members include large and small hotel companies with both international and regional portfolios.
Felicity Cousins caught up with CEO Glenn Mandziuk to talk about what the sector needs to do to keep up the sustainability momentum.
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ITM has launched its Taskforce on Building Inclusive Travel Programmes, which aims to prioritise inclusion and accessibility in workplace travel policies.
The Taskforce will help travel professionals adapt policies based on the participation of persons with disabilities.
Made up of experts from both supplier and buyer backgrounds, the group will produce a guide and webinar to equip travel buyers with practical steps toward creating inclusive travel programmes.
Acknowledging the industry groundwork already conducted by associations such as GBTA and its Accessibility Toolkit; the ITM taskforce builds upon a developing inclusive travel programmes matrix.
Key objectives include:
Highlighting the significance of inclusion and accessibility within travel policies;
Equipping buyers with strategies to collaborate with internal stakeholders;
Aligning travel programmes with broader company policies.
Actionable steps for implementing inclusivity at the core of travel programmes;
A downloadable guide containing tangible strategies and insights.
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The global Hospitality industry can collectively reduce its food-related emissions by 30 per cent by 2030, according to a new White Paper focussed on food waste.
The World Sustainable Hospitality Alliance, Iberostar Hotels & Resorts, the Sustainable Markets Initiative and Systemiq released the Decarbonizing hotel food systems White Paper, which recommends a pathway for the industry to cut up to 70 million tonnes of CO2 annually.
With the hospitality industry representing 1 per cent of all food production emissions and generating 3 per cent of global food waste, the paper highlights solutions such as waste-tracking technologies, which can cut waste by up to 50 per cent.
The report also outlines how hotels can influence the global food system by leveraging their procurement power and optimising energy use, seeking to engage hospitality leaders in driving systemic transformation in the way food is sourced, prepared, and consumed in hotels.
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Belu is the sustainable water brand, which provides bottled and filtered water to hotels around the world. Belu reinvests 100 per cent of its profits to support clean water and sanitation and has granted £5.8 million to Water Aid since 2011, helping nearly 392,000 people in some of the world’s poorest communities.
Editor Felicity Cousins caught up with CEO Natalie Campbell MBE to discuss circularity, what hotels want, water logistics and how Belu is making big changes in the new year.
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Agnes Pierce, director, global head of sustainability, hospitality, Amadeus.
“In recent years, sustainability has taken center stage in the hospitality industry. Our Travel Technology Investment Trends research (1) shows that 87 per cent of hoteliers feel that sustainability objectives are either ‘important’ (40 per cent) or ‘very important’ (47 per cent). Rightfully so, the travel industry accounts for 8 per cent of global carbon emissions, and over-tourism is a growing issue worldwide.
Fortunately, our research also found that 88 per cent of respondents were confident they can demonstrate progress in environmental sustainability, with 80 per cent claiming the same vis-à-vis social sustainability. This progress is part of a wider pattern that has created new opportunities in the industry, from eco-conscious jobs and tourism initiatives to innovative sustainability-focused projects. Today, continued investment promises to drive both industry growth and socio-environmental progress.
So, with sustainability at the top of the investment agenda, what technologies will hoteliers leverage to decrease travel’s environmental and social impact, and how will this transform the industry?
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roundup of news from the GSTC2024 Global Sustainable Tourism Conference, which took place in Sentosa, Singapore this month.
The event brought together 500 delegates from 55 countries and participants included international and regional tourism stakeholders involved in the development and promotion of sustainable tourism, including the public sector, hotels, tour operators, academia, development agencies, NGOs, consultants, and more.
As with previous GSTC Conferences, the carbon footprint of the event and the travel of all attendees has been calculated, and offset by Green Evolution but the Singapore Tourism Board (STB) also extended a complimentary e-card for spending in Singapore for participants who chose to carbon offset their flights individually.
Prior to the conference, four onsite GSTC Trainings took place in Sentosa, Singapore, with 80 industry professionals taking part. The training looked at the GSTC Criteria, the global standards for sustainability in tourism and travel, Accessible and Inclusive Travel, as well as a course for GSTC Auditor Training, which covered the GSTC Industry Criteria and the audit process.
Alvin Tan, minister of state, Ministry of Trade and Industry & Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth opened the conference alongside Luigi Cabrini, chair of the GSTC.
“The introduction of the GSTC Criteria aims to develop a common language for sustainable tourism and align that understanding globally, serving as one of the most widely accepted international standards for sustainability in travel and tourism,” said Tan.
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According to new research from Accor, a third of travellers want greater transparency around the impact of sustainable offerings.
The 22-page European Travel 2025, Balancing Growth and Impact report, based on research from 8,000 travellers from seven European countries, found that 36 per cent of travellers wanted more sustainable options available, while 34 per cent wanted greater transparency around the impact of offerings.
Climate change and sustainable options were found as “important” to 73 per cent of travellers and it’s not just travellers who have focussed on sustainability. Accor dedicates a third of the report – pages 7-14 to the responses from travellers on sustainable issues.
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Hybrid hospitality brand The Social Hub will debut in Portugal and double its footprint in Italy amid plans to open three new hubs in early next year.
The new hubs in Porto, Florence and Rome brings the number of properties to 21 across 19 major European cities, including Amsterdam, Barcelona, Glasgow and Paris.
The Social Hub Porto, which will open in the historic centre of Portugal’s second largest city, will be the brand’s first in the country with plans to expand to Lisbon in coming years. This will also be the first The Social Hub venue to include long-stay apartments as the brand’s hybrid hospitality proposition evolves.
New four-star hubs in Florence – the second for the city – and Rome, are committed to regenerative projects, helping transform disused and empty sites into vibrant spaces for people from all walks of life.
Marion Koopman, The Social Hub’s chief operations & commercial officer, said: “Our first new hub in the Italian capital of Rome, our second in Florence, and our debut into Portugal represent landmark developments for The Social Hub brand.
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The World Sustainable Hospitality Alliance (the Alliance) has launched its Universal Sustainability Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).
The Alliance made the announcement during a joint session of Tourism Ministers and the COP Presidency at COP29.
The Universal KPIs initiative, which is part of the COP29 Declaration on Enhanced Climate Action in Tourism, aims to address global climate challenges, enhance economic sustainability, and drive sustainable consumer choices.
It will establish a structured framework for the hospitality sector to measure and report on essential ESG metrics, such as greenhouse gas emissions (GHG), water consumption, waste and energy usage.
The initiative will focus on adherence to the GHG Protocol, expanding Scope 3 emissions, and establishing a comprehensive system of data verification in preparation for COP30.
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Hosted by Hyatt Place London City East, the second Sustainability Bites took place at the end of November with a select group of leaders from the industry invited to a round table chat about circularity in the hospitality space.
Joining Michael Mason-Shaw and Felicity Cousins were; Tommie Eaton, Clean the World and founder Bambuu Brush, Bryan Oknyansky, head of sustainability, Studio Moren, Juliane Cailloutte Noble, managing director, The Sustainable Restaurant Association, Debbie Hindle, chair of the International Centre for Responsible Tourism global (ICRT global), Joanne Taylor-Stagg, general manager, The Athenaeum Hotel, London.
When we talk about hotels, how waste is processed is a big topic, and while the hotel industry has embraced recycling and there are brands which endeavour to achieve zero waste and promote upcycling, re-using and sourcing sustainable products for their properties, the reality is most hotels and their supply chains are not doing enough.
The group at the table wanted to explore why this was the case and also if the challenges stopping hotels from being more conscious about their waste were financial, operational, to do with infrastructure or a lack of government support or perhaps to do with guest behaviour, awareness and attitude.
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